“The gun is three hundred and fifty feet long and has a bore of, let’s see, sixty-six feet; it has semireflective mirrors at either end. The power comes from a nuclear generator plant that’s six stories down and about a quarter mile away. That must be the place Intelligence pinpointed from the photographs. The energy is piped to the weapon through massive conduits into electrodes and then thick supercooled cables that run the length of the laser. When the energy is built up to the required level of intensity, the scientist just presses a button, and the beam fries a city like an egg.
“Oh, and one other thing. Sam, you caught the fact that the Russians sent up a whole series of satellites in August. Well, they were all part of this operation. The Soviets set up a string of grapefruit-sized spheres in orbit, and these act like navigational aids for the laser. It can bounce off one of these balls at exactly the angle needed to redirect it to a target on earth.
“That’s about all we need to know at this moment. Our program is amazingly similar to theirs in most details. The only problem is they are operational right now, and we aren’t, thanks to lack of money.”
William Stark rushed to him. “That’s fantistic, Gerald! Just fantastic! Can we adapt this information to our own gun right away?”
Weinroth looked away, cast his gaze around the room for a while, and then met his President’s eyes again.
“I can say positively there is no chance. Our contraption is only slightly different from theirs, but the biggest problem is that they have their nuclear generators working, and we won’t have ours going for three months. Without them, we can’t get any power to the weapon. Besides that, we don’t have the spheres in orbit to direct the beam back to earth.”
Stark was crushed. “You mean having this material doesn’t really help us at all?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Goddamnit, to have these plans and not be able to use them!”
“Maybe we can,” Randall said. “Why not let the Russians know we have the blueprints and have worked out an operational laser? It’s a bluff, but maybe they’ll buy it and hold off.”
Gerald Weinroth weighed the suggestion. “It depends on what they know of our progress on the gun up to now. If they’re in the dark, it might work.”
Randall scribbled a brief hot-line message and handed it to Stark for comment. The president read it and said: “Go ahead, Bob. It just might set their clocks back for a while.”
It was 6:45 P.M. in Washington. The deadline was four hours and thirty-three minutes away.
Joe Safcek opened his eyes and saw bright early-morning sunlight streaming in through the window. A nurse in white starched linen was at the foot of the bed.
Safcek wondered who she was and where he was, and then she spoke in Russian, and he knew. When he tried to move, the pain hit him, and he remembered the field and Luba. Safcek thought of the pistol and wondered whether he had ever reached it and pushed the arming button. But the sunlight warned him he had not, for hours must have gone by and he was still alive.
The nurse went to the door and spoke to a uniformed man, who then peered in at Safcek. The man’s eyes were watery, almost friendly, as they examined the wounded man. In Russian he called: “Good morning, sir.”
Joe Safcek just stared at the man looming up before him. He wore the uniform of a colonel in the KGB. Built like a fire plug, squat and lumpy, he was impeccably dressed, and his face, seamed and generously streaked with the ravages of good liquor, was affable and reassuring. Safcek noticed the Soviet colonel wore a walkie-talkie strapped to his right hip.
He pulled up a chair beside the bed. “I hope you’re feeling well enough to talk for a moment or two.”
Safcek was fully awake now. The realization that his mission had failed broke through the sedatives and anesthetics and left him alert and wary.
“What time is it?” Safcek asked.
“Six o’clock, Colonel. It is colonel, isn’t it?”
Calculating swiftly, Safcek knew that it would be 7 P.M. now in Washington, which in just a little over four hours might be burned from the face of the earth. He decided not to waste any time on sham. “I’m Colonel Joseph Safcek, U.S. Army, Serial Number 0-1926112, on detached duty from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.”
The Soviet colonel slapped his knee loudly. “Well sir, my compliments on your forthright attitude. It saves us all a lot of unnecessary effort. Would you mind telling me the details of your mission? We have sent your unfortunate comrade to a hospital in Tashkent, and I regret what our guards did to her. But I am sure you realize the methods we have to employ at this location.”
Safcek shifted his position and winced at the effort. He ignored the officer’s reference to Luba.
The colonel lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up to the ceiling. “Colonel Safcek, the details, please.”
“We came here to destroy the laser. As simple as that. You caught us infiltrating before we could accomplish our task.”
“You must be an amazing man, Colonel, for your country to trust you with such a tremendous chore. To think they believed you could single-handedly eliminate our most secret project! Incredible!”
Safcek tried to smile. “I’ve had some experience, sir. In Vietnam, I made a career out of living behind enemy lines and doing roughly the same kind of thing.”
The Russian was properly impressed. He smoked the cigarette for a minute and then repeated his request.
“The details, please.”
Safcek sighed through his pain. “Once inside the perimeter we could make our way to the laser, plant charges around the building and burn down the laser. The chargers had timers on them, giving us thirty minutes to clear the area. At three o’clock we were supposed to meet a helicopter east of Tashkent and go home.”
The colonel looked quickly at his watch.
Safcek reassured him. “The chopper’s long gone now, Colonel. It could only wait fifteen minutes for us.”
“Where was home?”
When Safcek did not answer, the Russian went on to another point. “We found no dynamite with you, Colonel. We did find six charges in the trunk of your car, though.”
“They’re still out there in a clump of trees,” Safcek lied. “We only took six of the twelve we had because I felt that would be enough. They should be near where you found us. All our weapons are out there. I had two pistols and a knife. The woman had a knife and an AK-47 rifle.”
The Russian smiled affably as he looked around for an ashtray. “Are there any other teams operating against us now? It’s hard to believe the United States would leave its fate to just one group! No offense intended toward you, by the way. I must say I admire you tremendously on both a professional and personal level.”
Safcek summoned his strength and accepted the compliment.
“Thanks very much. But I failed, and there’s no one else around to help me out. You can rest easy on that.”
The Russian was not convinced. As he rose from the chair, the ash fell from his cigarette to the floor. He smoothed it into the rug with the polished tip of his boot and excused himself.
“I’ll be back later, Colonel Safcek. Please rest and ask the nurse for anything you want. Within reason, of course.” The Russian laughed as he went out the door.
Safcek lay back exhausted. Helpless to control events further, his only hope was that someone would search for the pistol, pick it up, and play with it. Safcek asked the nurse to close the blinds.
Colonel Lavrenti Kapitsa had gone back to his office, where he found his distinguished visitor from Moscow. Sitting behind the desk, Marshal Pavel Andreievich Bakunin was leafing through the log detailing the capture of the intruders outside the perimeter. Bakunin was curt with Kapitsa.