“Well, how about by the waterways?”
“Too risky. The canal traffic is subject to checks at various points all along the routes. The truth is we cannot get caught.”
“What do you consider the best chance of success?”
“It’s all a bit worrying, Arnie. I suppose the chopper over the border…flying very low, right under the radar. If one of their military listening stations picked it up, they’d shoot it down. If push comes to shove we might just have to accept that risk and go for it.”
“Christ, if that happened there’d be all hell to pay.”
“I know it. But I don’t know any other way round the problem.”
By this time, both men were pacing the room, deep in thought. Neither spoke for several minutes. Then John Bergstrom said, “Arnie, there is something in the back of my mind…you read about that new HALO development? It’s not perfected, but my guys in the industry say it’s gonna work.”
“HALO,” replied Morgan. “That’s High Altitude, Low Opening, right? A free-fall situation from above twenty thousand feet. You’re thinking of dropping a couple of guys out of an aircraft, high over Russia, hanging on to all that kit. Jesus. I’m not sure about that, John.”
“No, Arnie. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking capsules. Big metal canisters that operate on the same system as laser-guided bombs. We’re gonna pitch ’em out of a military aircraft high over Russia — maybe as high as thirty-five thousand feet, and get ’em to home in on a beam.”
“Home in on what?”
“A beam. We just get our guys in there. On the ground, somewhere out in the wilds near the lake, and they turn on their device and wait for the aircraft. The beam locks on and the air crew dump the canisters out. Then the computerized steering activates a small power unit in the canisters and steers ’em right in.”
“Christ. That’s pretty smart. But I have a few questions.”
“Hit me.”
“Do these things just crash into the ground like a bomb?”
“No. They fall like stones for thirty-four thousand feet. Then the ’chutes open, and they float in the last eight hundred feet at around twelve miles per hour. From the moment the ’chute opens it’s about forty-five seconds before they hit the ground. And barring a gale, they come in within thirty yards of the beam. The guys will not only see them floating down, they’ll hear them thud into the ground.”
“How about radar?”
“With those things hurtling through the air, straight down, from thirty-five thousand feet, the chances of the Russians getting a good fix, before they disappear, are pretty remote. And even if they did, it’d be a bit late to do much about it. On a screen I guess they’d look like meteorites or something.”
“What would they weigh?”
“Around two hundred and fifty pounds each, specially fitted with handles, of course, to make it easy for two guys to carry.”
“Then what? Bury ’em somewhere near the edge of the woods?”
“Exactly. And as soon as the SEALs open ’em up, the first thing they take out are a couple of spades. Then they lock ’em up and bury ’em, all ready for the night when they’ll be back for ’em.”
“I got another problem, John. How are we going to send a military aircraft over Russian airspace without them asking all kinds of questions?”
“That’s pretty simple. With sensible care, there’s nothing to identify a military aircraft from a commercial one, unless they just happen to put up an interceptor for a visual ident. And that’s most unlikely.”
The SEALs Commander walked over to a large globe in the corner of his office and ran a length of a tape measure across the top, edging it into position. “There you are,” he said, tapping the globe. “The polar route from Los Angeles to the Emirates, right on the Gulf. Passes directly down the right-hand side of the lake. We bring in the chief executive of whichever American airline flies that route, and have him file a commercial flight plan with the Russians for that night. No one would think of questioning it. The only difference is, it’ll be a high-altitude echo-enhanced military aircraft making the journey, five miles up there, instead of a regular Boeing.”
“Did I ever mention the fact that you might be a genius?” said Arnold Morgan.
“Not lately,” said Admiral Bergstrom.
“Have they actually tested this system?” said Morgan. “In the desert, and it happened just as you are saying?”
“I have no hard report, but a couple of my guys were out there, and they said it was a goddamned miracle. Those things just came floating in from thirty-five thousand feet and landed right there, just a few yards from the beam.”
“John, old buddy, we got ourselves a plan. That’s the way we’ll go. Where are the guys right now.”
“They’re in a hotel in Helsinki, waiting for the word to move into one of the tour ships across the bay in St. Petersburg. They have excellent papers and passports, as we agreed before.”
“Sounds good. Now, I’ll get the CIA to take care of all of those tour ship bookings. I think we better start those four days after the Tolkach barges actually arrive off the Red Sormovo yards. In theory, they could load and depart right away. Although I don’t think that will happen.”
“Right. I’ll send a veteran chief petty officer into Helsinki, and he can go with two SEALs up the lakes on a ship right away.”
“We need to move fast. They’d better get the canisters made and trucked down here in a couple of days. We’ll load them, and have ’em ready to go that same day. I’ll get the chief on a flight to Helsinki tomorrow morning. We’ll almost certainly have a couple of weeks to spare, but we wanna be ready.”
“One thing, John, are we going to need good timing to get the recce team away from the tour ship and out to the drop zone?”
“Not really. You see we’ll know the exact time they’re scheduled to arrive at the Green Stop before the ship departs. We just need to get the dropper overhead, say, two hours later. That way the guys can just appear to take a walk and set up their beam, and we’ll make sure the aircraft is up there right on time. If he’s late, it just means the guys will have to hang around for an hour. Which doesn’t matter. The thing is, he can’t be early, because he cannot slow down much during his approach through Russian airspace. But I’m not seeing a problem there.”
“No, John, neither am I. The key to this lies in our ability to organize it without a hitch. And then it’s in the hands of the SEALs. By the way, how do we get ’em out? They’re not going back on the ship are they?”
“The recce team will…the ship makes very fast time back, running nonstop at around twenty to twenty-five knots all the way to St. Pete’s. Of course, the strike squad will not return to the ship. We’ll have them out in a small truck, but there will be nothing incriminating about them. Just a small group of tourists trundling around in the land of their forefathers. No problem to anyone. It’s very rural up there. Nothing much for anyone to be sensitive about.”
“Until the charges go off. That might change things a bit.”
“So it might, Arnie, but we’ll be long gone by then.”
“How about afterward? There’s gotta be a fucking uproar, whatever happens.”
“Now that’s your problem. Not mine. I’m here to bang out three little Russian diesel-electrics. And I think I can do it. The uproar will be political. And that’s your beat. We better get the guys at the CIA to work on it.”
“Yeah. Guess so. Somehow we want to be indignant…file some complaint or other…try to sow the seed of doubt in the Russian mind that the whole thing might have been carried out by those Chechens, or a fundamentalist group. We’re not the only country that has a beef with the Moscow government.”