It was Captain Valenko who first noticed the empty slip where the Cheka had been docked earlier. Feeling they weren’t so alone after all, he handed the helm to his doleful-eyed senior lieutenant. Valenko then proceeded anxiously to his cabin to open the second set of sealed orders awaiting him there. Only then would he know where in the world they were presently bound.
Approximately 4,180 miles west of the Kamchatka peninsula, the sun was just breaking the eastern horizon. For Konstantin Belchenko it would prove to be another long day. A ringing telephone had roused him from his warm bed over an hour ago. The first deputy director soaked in the admiral’s frantic words and promised to call him back as soon as a solution to the dilemma was worked out. Since the problem was a difficult one, he dressed warmly and decided upon a contemplative walk on the grounds of his dacha.
The air was chilly but fresh as he moved his slender frame outdoors. By the light of the dawn sky, he made his way carefully to the road leading down to the Sura.
A crow cried harshly as a rippling northern breeze blew through the surrounding birch wood. As he crossed the forest, the trail gradually widened and he was able to increase his pace. By the time he could hear the flow of crashing waters, his newly circulated blood had warmed his stiff, frozen limbs.
Sorokin’s frantic phone call had given Belchenko quite a shock: Viktor Rodin had invited the admiral to accompany him to Los Angeles. The ultimate consequences of such a trip were obvious.
Belchenko’s first reaction was that the admiral come up with some kind of excuse to decline this request. But the admiral had already tried that gambit, and every excuse he used had been firmly resisted by the Premier. Not desiring to make Rodin overly suspicious, he had been forced, reluctantly, to agree to go along.
Belchenko walked slowly while his mind raced. The banks of the river were in sight as he followed the trail up to the summit of a treeless hillside. Upon reaching the clearing he was consumed by a fit of violent coughing. Stabbing pains pierced his lungs as he vainly attempted to catch his breath. Only after spitting up a red-speckled mass of congealed phlegm did the choking fit subside.
Whenever he thought he had his sickness licked, his lungs would spasm and tell him otherwise. There could be no ignoring what it meant. Most likely this would be the illness that would take him to his deathbed.
A ray of direct sunlight broke through the misty veil that had settled over the eastern portion of the river valley. A flock of song birds called out behind him.
But Belchenko realized that he had no time left for contemplating Nature’s bounty … or his approaching death.
Years of selfless dedication and hard work were finally about to pay off. Unfortunately, there would be some casualties along the way.
Stanislav Sorokin had been right to accept his fate in such an exalted manner. At least he could die knowing that his sacrifice had been for the good of the cause. And what a cause it was!
Peering out over the river valley one last time, Belchenko watched a hawk soaring gracefully above.
This successful survivor knew the secret of eternal vigilance. Viktor Rodin and his meek followers were like the hawk’s prey. Groveling in the dirt like cowards, those weak fools were about to surrender the fruits of decades of hard work and sacrifice. And for what — a magically transformed world of peace and equality?
Nonsense! Like the snakes they were, the imperialists could never be trusted. Centuries of decadent greed were not about to disappear with the signing of a single treaty. One thing that the capitalists were experts at was taking advantage of those in a weaker bargaining position. Viktor Rodin was merely the answer to their prayers.
Blinded by the illusion of peace, the Soviet Union would disarm itself of its strategic inventory. But the Yankees would make a sham out of their own disarmament.
Then, like the Nazi hordes under the madman Hitler, the Americans would pull out the nuclear weapons they had cleverly been hiding. Powerless to respond to such a threat, the Soviet Union would be at the mercy of its sworn enemy.
After Krushchev’s bungling of the Cuban missile crisis, Belchenko swore that he would never again allow the Motherland to bargain from a position of weakness. Patriots such as Stanislav Sorokin had helped make this promise a reality. Parity had been achieved, and now the Rodina was even said to have the upper hand. Viktor Rodin wanted to negate their efforts with one simple sweep of his pen.
If it was necessary, then the admiral would indeed have to die in Los Angeles. There was too much at stake to become cowards now.
An intense pain seared his left side, and Belchenko had no doubt that he’d be joining his old friend shortly. They could meet death bravely, knowing that Operation Counterforce would insure the existence of the Rodina for many generations to come.
Chapter Six
Junior Lieutenant Andrei Yakalov’s present duty was a dream come true.
Since he was a child in the Ukrainian wheat fields outside of Kiev, airplanes had always fascinated him. Just to see aircraft passing in the skies above was enough to thrill him. He would not have believed that, one day soon, his service to the Motherland would find him flying almost five days out of every week.
Long was the road that brought him to his current duty as sensor operator aboard an Ilyushin IL-38 turboprop command plane. Yakalov had consigned himself to the fact that he would most likely follow his forefathers into the wheat fields Though the younger dreamed of flying off to foreign lands, he never really thought such an opportunity would come his way. His chance came during his eighth-grade exams. It was at this time that he was found to have unusually sensitive hearing. The school’s DOSAAF administrator reported this to Kiev, and several weeks later he received a letter inviting him to enter the Nakhimov Naval School in far-off Sevastopol. Here he would be given further tests and, upon passing them, would be given the opportunity to earn a naval commission.
Though he was ecstatic, his parents were somewhat saddened by the fact that they would soon be losing their boy for good. Knowing a rare opportunity when he saw it, Yakalov packed up his few belongings and anxiously initiated the long train ride south to the legendary Black Sea port. Once there, he passed his tests easily and was soon on the way to realizing his dream.
The 11–38 bucked in a pocket of headwind, and the junior lieutenant snapped from his reverie. Still having trouble believing the reality of his present duty, he checked the bank of instruments for which he was currently responsible. Before him were the controls to the plane’s sonobuoys, hydrophones, and the magnetic ana moly detector, commonly called MAD.
These sophisticated devices could be utilized to pick up the presence of the enemy’s attack and missile carrying submarines. This was quite an accomplishment, considering their normal cruising altitude was 20,000 feet above sea level.
They were currently over the Pacific ocean, somewhere between Vladivostok, their home base, and the Hawaiian Islands. They had been in the air for over seven hours now, and should be turning back west any moment.
So far, the flight had been an easy one for him. The majority of the patrol had been spent applying the IL38‘8 other capability, that of a communications relay platform for the Soviet Union’s own submarines.
The equipment, and the specialist who ran it, were in a separate compartment in the forward fuselage. Since the majority of that gear was top secret, Yakalov was quite happy to stay in his own quarters.
One of the first lessons he had learned in Sevastopol was that, to get ahead in the military, one had to learn to mind one’s own business.
Where Yakalov really wished he could venture was the cockpit. To him, this was where the action was coming down. He had tried hard to get into the pilot program, but had received one rejection letter after another. It was soon evident that the military wanted him for his ears, not his eyes. He thought it fitting that the tail section of the IL-38 didn’t even have a window. This made it easier for him to concentrate with his other senses.