In the ancient mosque south of Tashkent, the Operation Scratch team was preparing for the assault on the laser complex, checking equipment, cleaning weapons. Peter and Boris had not been able to sleep even for a moment. They had spent several hours criticizing the current Soviet leadership. Peter Kirov was convinced the overtures made by Smirnov in past months were a sham, part of the plan to lull the United States into a false security. Boris Gorlov argued strongly that the premier was well-intentioned and might be in serious trouble with the other members of the Presidium. Neither man had evidently been briefed on the coup that had replaced Smirnov with the figurehead Krylov.
Joe Safcek had not joined the conversation. He was more concerned with the night ahead. From the scouting mission just hours earlier, he knew that it would be almost impossible for his group to storm the bastion. That left him with the option of using the atomic bomb, and he was deliberating how to do it most effectively. As he mulled over the route and strategy, Luba appeared on the stairway, and Safcek called up to her: “Luba, did you rest?”
She stretched luxuriously and said: “At least two hours. I’m ready to go anytime.”
Safcek looked at his watch. It was 9:45 P.M. He broke in on the dialogue between Gorlov and Kirov.
“Boris, it’s time for our report to Richter. Write this down: Arrive laser area 2245 hours Tashkent time. Using fissionable material. Expect detonation approximately 0100 hours Tashkent time, allowance one half hour for local conditions. Rendezvous chopper at 0300 hours. Got it?”
Boris read it back, and Safcek told him to get upstairs immediately and send.
Gorlov moved quickly up the crumbling stairway to the set propped against a window. From it an antenna ran to the roof of the ancient mosque.
He sat down and quickly encoded Safcek’s message.
Gorlov adjusted the frequency knob, depressed the sending key and spoke softly into the microphone:
“This is Laika, this is Laika…”
In Peshawar, Karl Richter heard him instantly.
“Eagle here, Eagle here…”
Gorlov smiled in the dim light and continued with the message from Safcek. He spoke in fluent Russian and alerted Karl Richter to the plans for the night. After one minute and two seconds, Gorlov signed off.
As he got up to strike the antenna from the outside wall, a sudden noise on the stairway startled him, and he whirled. A hand locked over his mouth, and a knife cut into his throat from under the left ear across the Adam’s apple. The hand released him, and Boris slid gurgling to the floor.
In Peshawar, Karl Richter was already speaking to President William Stark, who was back in the Situation Room with Robert Randall.
“Yes, sir, Gorlov just told me the blast should occur within the time period one thirty to two thirty P.M. in Washington. He made no mention of any trouble so far.”
“Thanks, Karl. Let me know right away on any news.”
Stark turned to Randall and said: “Richter says they’re about to make their run for the laser, and so far it’s gone smoothly.” Stark looked at his watch. “About three hours to detonation, I figure.” He thought a minute. “On that idea of yours for a standdown, tell Roarke to order everybody away from the missile silos and to keep the bombers on the ground for a while. Maybe we can lull the Russians a little until Safcek has his chance.” He paused. “Also, better tell him to put a couple of satellites up over Tashkent right away.”
Less than thirteen hours remained until the ultimatum deadline.
Outside the White House, civil defense officials wearing armbands had appeared on the streets. They headed to assigned posts, where they advised people about the gas danger and ordered personnel away from the city.
On radio and TV, listeners were bombarded with orders to evacuate because of the danger of gas seepage, explosion, and fire. All were advised to take the barest minimum of clothing and food for several meals in case of delay in repairing defective pipelines.
Huge downtown office buildings disgorged men and women, who found their cars and headed for the suburbs. Lines of buses appeared as if magically at major intersections to take all passengers normally dependent on metropolitan transportation. Many of the younger evacuees were in an exceptionally good mood. Relieved at getting time off, they clambered into their vehicles and rode off toward Virginia and Maryland.
Army troops had appeared, some directing traffic, others standing before empty stores to prevent looting.
On Capitol Hill, senators and representatives heeded the plea to leave without question. They sent their staffs away and quietly, dutifully, moved on. In his office, the venerable Jonas Ingram packed his papers in a worn briefcase and stepped to the door. Having heard from the President’s own lips what the Soviet Union had in mind for America, the elderly congressman had no illusions about the real reason for the evacuation. He put on his panama hat and walked into the corridor. As Jonas Ingram came out into the daylight, he stood for a moment and looked up at the white dome of the Capitol; then he stumbled down the steep steps to his waiting limousine.
In the mosque, Boris Gorlov’s killer moved to the radio, sat down, and quickly adjusted the frequencies. The killer depressed the key and called urgently: “K-422, K-422 calling from Tashkent… come in, come in…” A swirl of static answered. “K-422, calling from Tashkent…”
“We have you, K-422… where are you exactly?”
“I’m in a—”
Luba Spitkovsky smashed the receiver with the butt of an automatic rifle, and all reception ended.
American intelligence gatherers were moving their chess pieces on the board. A Samos camera satellite circling the globe at an altitude of one hundred and two miles received instructions through its on-board computer and acted immediately to comply. Jet thrusters in the tail were activated for four seconds, and the silver capsule veered off its prescribed course to a new orbit, eighty-four miles high and farther to the west. At a point near the city of Tashkent, reverse thrusters were activated, and the satellite slowed and hovered over the laser works just north of the city.
Over the north Italian Alps, a Midas-sensing satellite received a new set of directions from its brain on the ground and swiftly reacted to the programmed data. It moved across the Balkans, across the Black Sea and the Caucasus to slow and stop forty miles west of the Samos satellite. The Midas heat-sensing devices were tested once and then trained far below to the area covering Tashkent and thirty miles north. The probe was centered directly on the laser complex.
In the United States, technicians sat by their recording instruments waiting for tangible evidence that Operation Scratch had succeeded. Beside them were phones linking them with President William Stark at the White House.
The fires north and south of Washington were still raging. In Bethesda, the order to evacuate took on a more urgent tone as the spreading holocaust began to eat at residential tracts. At least fifteen homes had been destroyed before 11 A.M.
In the Oval Room, William Stark heard this news with a deep frown. Herb Markle had worried that the situation would get out of hand. Stark had reassured him it would not. And now Bethesda was a battleground between the devouring flames and exhausted firemen.
Beyond the south lawn, he could see the traffic jammed on the approaches to the Potomac bridges. While horns beeped and drivers sweltered in the heat, the exodus from the city proceeded at a snail’s pace.