Kulikov's throat was dry. "You have known?… From the beginning you have known?"
Kostiashak smiled again.' 'But of course, my dear Aleksandr. You know" — he allowed himself a chuckle—"your French controllers should have given you some instruction in the tradecraft of espionage. Your attempts at avoiding detection were so clumsy that my surveillance teams had a most difficult time containing their laughter." Now Kostiashak laughed himself. "It was truly most amusing."
Obviously, Kulikov did not find it amusing. "But why? Why did you wait until now to confront me? Did you not know I was passing documents to the French?"
Kostiashak stroked his silk tie. "A fair question. I did not arrest you for two reasons. One, it has been my experience that the Foreign Ministry deals with matters that are of litde consequence; therefore, the materials you were passing to the French were of little consequence. I\vo, I felt you could possibly be useful to me in the future. And I was correct."
Kulikov's gaze remained wary.' 'What is it you wish me to do?''
"Simply hang up the phone and send a reply cable, over the Foreign Minister's name, to Yakolev in Washington. Instruct the ambassador not to contact the Americans, and to wait at the embassy until further orders are received."
Kulikov wavered. "Issue a cable under the Foreign Minister's name without his authorization? I… I do not believe I could do that."
The KGB Chairman folded his arms and assumed a studious pose. "My dear Aleksandr, the choice is yours. You can refuse to send the cable, and spend the night in Lefortovo Prison awaiting your trial on espionage charges, or you can do as I ask and be on an Air France flight for Paris tomorrow night."
Kulikov felt faint. He couldn't believe his,ears. In a voice that was little more than a whimper, he said, "Paris?"
Kostiashak nodded. "With, perhaps, a little something extra waiting for you at the branch office of the Credit Suisse Bank when you arrive."
Kulikov blinked… then hung up the phone and picked up his cablegram pad.
Seymour Woltman couldn't believe his own stupidity. He'd torn out of the gas station in Yeehaw Junction without filling up with gas, and was on the Florida Turnpike when his station wagon went chug… chug… chug and died — the victim of an empty tank. It took him a couple of hours to get refueled and back on the road. He was sure someone had beaten him to the story, but when he returned to the bureau office he checked the wire, and there was no mention of a torch sailing across the southern Florida sky. Maybe everybody had been asleep. Maybe there was cloud cover and witnesses were few. But whatever the reason, he was going to be ahead of the pack. He dashed off his story, entered it in the computer, punched in the codes to put it out on a flash circuit, and hit the transmit button.
FLASH… FLASH… FLASH Z2552DQNTG FL-ROCKET 0179
(MIAMI) — AN UNIDENTIFIED SPACECRAFT WAS LAUNCHED AT 4:35 A.M. SATURDAY FROM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER ON A TRAJECTORY THAT PASSED OVER SOUTHERN FLORIDA. FLIGHT TRAJECTORIES OVER POPULATED AREAS ARE SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED BY THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION, AND MAY INDICATE A MALFUNCTION IN THE SPACE VEHICLE. A LAUNCH VEHICLE MALFUNCTION OVER POPULATED AREAS COULD ENDANGER HUNDREDS, IF NOT THOUSANDS, OF LIVES. AP 08:03 EST
In newspapers and broadcast stations across the country a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding would be sounding on teletype printers, telling the news editors there was some heavy-duty shit going down at Cape Canaveral. But Woltman had the jump on the story, and he wasn't about to relinquish it to anyone. He pulled out the three-ring binder that held the office and home telephone numbers of everybody he knew that was worth knowing. In some cases he also had the numbers of their girlfriends or boyfriends. He turned to the page marked "NASA" and picked up the phone.
Whittenberg took the stereoscopic magnifying glasses and went back and forth between the photos, then looked up. "I see what you mean," he said to Strand. "When were these taken?"
Strand pointed. "The one on the left was a nighttime shot taken almost immediately after the second flight of the Soviet shuttle over three years ago. It had just landed on the recovery runway at Baikonur. As you can see, the infrared image is irregular. It shows up bright on the extremely hot leading edges of the orbiter, and becomes less so as you move in toward the top of the fuselage."
"Uh-huh," agreed Whittenberg as he peered through the glasses again.
"The second photo," continued Strand, "was taken after the most recent Soviet shuttle flight back in November, shortly after we got a Spyglass picture of it during retrofire. Unlike the other photo, it shows no irregularity in the orbiter's skin temperature. It's essentially uniform across the entire wing and fuselage surface."
Whittenberg went back and forth a few more times, then shoved the pictures and glasses across the conference room table to Dowd, his chief of staff. "You're right, Major," the CinC said absently. "What's your assessment?",
"I would say, sir, that the earlier image was taken after a genuine shuttle landing, because of the bright image generated by the leading edge of the wing. That's where the hottest temperatures occur during reentry. The uniform temperature on the second photograph would indicate to me that it's artificially induced— pertiaps electrically, or even chemically. In short, I'd bet the second image is of the replica." Strand turned and focused her gray eyes on Fairchild. "Sir, did you come up with anything on the orbit path?"
Sir Isaac shook his head. "I'm afraid not. It would've passed right over our GEODSS tracking station at Diego Garcia, but it was down for maintenance at the time. Looks like all we have to go on is what you have here."
"There's a definite difference," observed Dowd through the glasses. "The photo boys maybe shoulda caught this before." He shoved the pictures to Sir Isaac.
"So if that shuttle with the uniform heat dispersion is the dummy, and we caught the real shuttle during retrofire, then…" the CinC's voice drifted off.
"Then the real thing didn't make it through reentry," said Dowd with finality. "Damn grisly way to die."
"So what does it mean?" queried Whittenberg.
Sir Isaac looked up from the photos. "Remember — prior to their shuttle launch last November, the Russians hadn't launched a shutde in over a year. Maybe the same thing happened then."
"You mean, maybe they've burned up two shuttles on reentry?" asked Dowd.
Sir Isaac nodded.
"Jesus," muttered Dowd. "That would mean they had a problem. A severe problem. A problem that was…"
"Fundamental," said Strand. "A fundamental engineering glitch they couldn't solve. And they burned up two shutdes trying to fix it, but couldn't." She held the thought for a few moments. "That would mean the Russians were…"
"Behind," said Sir Isaac.
"Way behind," added Dowd.
Sir Isaac fired up his pipe again. A sure sign the wheels were turning inside his light bulb-shaped head. "So if they haven't got a viable shutde, and don't have a PRISM battle management system, or a Graser, that would mean they were really behind on an SDI program… so far behind they'd never catch up. So far behind…"
"They'd do something desperate," said Whittenberg. "Something desperate like stealing the Intrepid. So desperate they'd even try to sabotage the Constellation — and failing that, they'd go so far as to shoot it down."