The divers advanced toward the Kira on their underwater sleds.
The section of hull below the water — gradually became visible on the television screen.
The delegates gathered around it intently.
Soon, a hairline of light split the undersea darkness and began to widen. The Kira’s bulbous bow had cracked open on its centerline, like the halves of a gigantic mussel shell. The one-hundred-foot long sections slowly hinged apart, exposing the lower missile assembly deck— the deck which Lieutenant Jon Lowell never saw.
The Kira had been taking on crude for days. But missile deployment couldn’t commence until her holds were at least two thirds full to insure the hull was low enough in the water to be concealed when it opened.
The water rolled up into the massive bow cavity with a tumultuous gurgling, and engulfed a missile launching tube. A Soviet SS-16A Heron was sealed inside.
The tube was six feet in diameter and thirty feet long. The interior launch apparatus — though fitted with a self-contained steam generator and hi-band receiver for remote activation — was identical to those used on nuclear submarines. But the exterior had been substantially reinforced, and fitted with sharp-edged planes that spiraled around it from a pointed base, giving the launch tube the look of an undersea auger— which it was. It perched at the end of a hydraulic arm, like a gargantuan dentist’s drill.
The hydraulic arm was gyro-gimbaled to hold its position in the sea while it moved to the precise commands of a motion-control computer. Like a long-necked sea monster, it lowered the augered launch tube from the bowels of the ship into the water. Then it began bending at the elbow, bringing it into a vertical position beneath the Kira’s hull. When fully extended, it had positioned the augered tube’s drill point thirty feet above the floor of the Gulf.
In a control room in the Kira’s bow, technicians sat at instrument consoles monitoring the deployment. The chief missile technician evaluated the data, then pressed a button initiating phase two of the operation.
The hydraulic arm began telescoping downward in response. It stopped when the drill point pressed against the surface of the continental shelf eighty feet beneath the Kira’s hull.
Another signal started the augered tube turning slowly. The sharp blades began drilling a cylinder into the muddy sediment that, in this area, covers the Earth’s basalt mantle to depths of a hundred feet. Powerful air jets in the drill point helped loosen the ooze. High velocity vacuums on the hydraulic arm sucked up the debris to prevent it from surfacing.
Since being reoutfitted, the Kira had taken on crude from thirty-six Churchco offshore pumping stations. And each time, it left a Heron behind in the muddy sea bottom. The high concentration of metal created by the storage tanks and docking facilities was responsible for the missile base being virtually impervious to detection. The multispectral scanners and thermal and infrared sensors in KH-11 satellites would have immediately detected a concentration of metal in open sea — where there had been none before; but couldn’t detect a relatively minuscule addition to the high concentration already present at a drilling or pumping station — a concentration which tended to vary widely as tankers and support vessels arrived and departed, compounding the detection problem.
The delegates watched with growing astonishment as the augered launch tube gradually screwed its way into the sea bottom. When it was fully seated, the hydraulic arm disengaged, and began retracting into the Kira’s hull. The launch tube’s watertight hatch that explodes open on missile-launch was concealed beneath a soft mound of silt.
The delegates were aghast.
Keating let the impact register, then said, “Should one of those hatches become exposed, and be noticed — by maintenance divers for, example—this covered it.” He passed out copies of a Churchco memo which Boulton had procured. It was signed by Theodor Churcher, and authorized installation of underwater environmental control sensors that monitored seismic activity, and the chemical content of the seawater. The affixed specification sheet depicted a disc-shaped unit which looked exactly like a launch tube hatch.
“It’s a hoax,” Pykonen scoffed, gesturing to the television where the hull of the Kira could be seen slowly closing. “Totally lacking in credibility.”
“I agree, it is very hard to believe,” Keating replied. He exchanged smiles with Pomerantz, then leaning to the phone, said, “Quite a show, gentlemen. May we have verification now?”
Moments later, one of the Navy divers came into view. He swam toward the camera until his mask filled the television screen, then displayed a plastic-wrapped copy of the Communist party newspaper, Pravda.
“That’s today’s edition,” Keating said to the delegates. He looked to Pykonen, adding, “President Hilliard thought you’d find his selection of newspapers especially appropriate under the circumstances.” He didn’t have to remind Pykonen that Pravda means truth.
Chapter Fifty-two
The front-page headline of the International Tribune read:
SOVIET MISSILES IN GULF OF MEXICO
Beneath it was a series of underwater photographs, that had been released by the Pentagon, of the VLCC Kira deploying the Heron.
The Soviet delegation had stormed out of the talks in protest the previous afternoon. Pykonen immediately called Moscow to report the devastating news. But the Politburo was in session, debating the merits of various candidates for the premiership and it took him longer than anticipated to get through the Vertushka. He spent the evening on the phone with Gromyko and Dobrynin, working out the official Soviet position.
The arms control talks had been indefinitely suspended in the interim, and the following morning, Pykonen faced a swarm of reporters at Cointrin Airport, prior to his boarding a flight to Moscow.
“The Soviet Union officially and categorically denies the false accusations brought by the American delegation,” Pykonen said through his interpreter.
“The evidence seems irrefutable, sir,” one of the reporters prodded. “How do you account for it?”
The interpreter was still translating the question when Pykonen interrupted in English. “Soviet film experts are in agreement that state of the art special effects techniques and electronic trickery were used to create this underhanded deception,” he replied angrily. “Be advised, my government has no doubt this is but another example of Washington involving Hollywood in foreign policy matters. Evidently, Mr. Keating, and those he represents, never believed that the Soviet Union would negotiate in good faith, and when suddenly faced with our sincerity and openness, they employed these purveyors of smut and violence to undermine the talks. We note this was accomplished with the assistance of the Republic of Germany, and we condemn this despicable attempt to embarrass our nation. It is most deplorable, especially at this time when the Soviet people are still mourning the tragic loss of a beloved leader.”
The Aeroflot Ilyushin 62M with Pykonen aboard had just taken off when the Politburo — stung by the loss of the nuclear superiority SLOW BURN had promised, and freed from the political constraints it had imposed — bypassed Aleksei Deschin and selected Nikolai Tikhonov as the new Premier.
A short time later, in another section of the terminal, Phil Keating entered a Lufthansa VIP lounge, carrying a bouquet of flowers.