James P. Hogan (57 page)

Scanlon caught McCain’s body as it slumped down in the harness, and clipped on an extra sling to hold the inert form fast to the wall. Then he dropped the auxiliary line for the others to send up the ladder, signaling frantically for them to move fast.

They took Paula down to a room looking out over the main square of Turgenev, where a standard two-way videophone was connected through to Washington via Moscow and the regular international telecommunications system. Olga, Protbornov, and a group of others crowded in to witness the proceedings. A technician in contact with the Russian embassy in Washington on an adjacent panel announced that they were through, and moments later Bernard Foleda, poker-faced, was looking at her from the screen.

“‘Micro,’” he said.

“‘Phone,’” she responded.

There was a short delay. The transmission time to
Tereshkova
was a little over a second each way, the engineers had reminded Paula. Also, Soviet censors would be monitoring the broadcast to delete any undesirable material before it went out, which would introduce an additional short delay – Americans did the same thing on most of their “live” TV shows. Also, of course, it masked the additional turn-around time of the transmission’s being sent up from Earth before it was relayed back again.

Foleda nodded. “Glad to see you’re looking okay. It’s been quite a while. People here were getting worried. There’s a lot been going on back here to try and get you out.”

“I guessed.”

Again there was a delay before the image of Foleda responded. “Do you have any news of Sexton?” He was playing his part straight, not knowing what the score was.

“He’s here, and they. know I know he’s here. I assume you received the previous message that I sent, validation initializer ‘Pin.’” That had been the message confirming the presence of the Soviet leaders.

A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Foleda’s face. “They’ve found out about that?”

“I revealed it,” Paula told him.

Foleda drew in a long breath, containing his emotions with obvious effort. “Go on,” he said curtly.

“You wanted confirmation that the Soviet leaders are really here. The tone of your request implied that if the facts were otherwise, you had reason to believe that the Soviets were intending to attack. You suspected that the broadcasts you’re receiving might be recordings. Obviously a mistaken impression couldn’t be risked. I
know
their leaders are up here, because I’m up here and I’ve seen them, I sent the ‘Pin’ message to say so. But I wasn’t sure that it would carry enough weight in itself. The accomplices I have here, who helped me operate the channel that we’ve been communicating over, convinced me that the situation was serious enough to go to the Russians and get them to let me talk direct to you, to do whatever I have to do to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.” Following cues from one of the Russians across the room, Paula walked across to the window. A technician followed her with a camera. “This is the central square of Turgenev, in
Valentina Tereshkova
,” Paula said. “I’m in a building looking down over it. The people you can see down there are waiting for the arrival of the Soviet First Secretary and his party. If you’re getting Russian news coverage of this, compare what they’re showing you with what I’m seeing. What I’m offering to do is go down into the square and describe the scene from there as the First Secretary actually arrives. I have approval from the Russian authorities here to talk with some of his party on-camera, if you request it. They’re all extremely concerned here.”

“If they’re so concerned, why don’t they let Sexton come on with you?” Foleda asked.

“I tried to get him to do just that, but he refused. He wouldn’t cooperate with Russians in any way.”

Back across the-room, Foleda’s face stared out of the videophone screen for a long time, unmoving and unblinking. Paula hadn’t said anything about a message giving the laser frequency, and neither had he. That, of course, was still supposed to be a secret. Suddenly, Foleda seemed to arrive at a decision. “Wait,” he said. “There are other people that I have to bring in on this.” With that he stood up abruptly and disappeared from the picture.

Mutters of approval came from the audience that had been watching from around the room. In the midst of the hubbub, Major Uskayev came in and drew Protbornov over to the window. He pointed down at the far side of the square outside, where two figures were working their way along the edge of the crowd. One was wearing a knee-length tan coat with a black hat; the other had workman’s coveralls and a floppy brown peaked cap. Both were carrying long, rolled bundles. They looked casual, but were moving closer to the doors of the garage underneath the air-processing plant. Protbornov pointed them out to Paula. “Those are Earnshaw and Scanlon?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, that’s them.”

“Is their way clear?” Protbornov asked Uskayev.

“Yes, sir. All police have been moved back from that side of the square. The building is cleared but under observation.”

“Excellent.” Protbornov raised a pair of binoculars and gazed down through them. “My word, what theatricals!” he commented. “One has put on a beard. The other has a beard and spectacles.”

“They believe in being thorough,” Olga said, next to him. Paula watched the two figures saunter to the back of the crowd, stand looking around them for a few seconds, and then vanish quickly inside one of the garage doors. For an instant no one was looking at her, and she smiled to herself. ‘Yes, very thorough,” she agreed.

Then, Foleda reappeared and stated that the transmission from
Tereshkova
was being put onto a conference circuit to involve other US officials also. He requested live coverage from the square outside as Paula had offered. Accordingly, she went on down and out of the building with a party that included a number of Russian officers, engineers, and the camera and sound operators. Protbornov, Olga, and the remainder of his group went back upstairs to follow the exchange from the control room that Paula had been taken to on her return from Zamork. A number of screens had been hooked into the conference circuit by the time they arrived. On them, the Russians had so far identified Foleda’s chief, Philip Borden, the director of the CIA and his deputy, two senior military assistants to the defense secretary, a White House presidential aide, and several faces from the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Protbornov was radiating triumph, and Olga looked coolly pleased with herself.

Then a thunderous applause went up from the crowd on the screen showing Paula in the square outside, as the doors at the rear of the terrace in the background opened. The dignitaries who were already gathered parted to make way for the familiar stock figure of First Secretary Vladimir Petrokhov, flanked by his most senior ministers and key Party members, “Describe what’s happening now,” Foleda said from one of the screens.

“Petrokhov and his group are coming out onto the terrace in front of me now,” Paula replied on the other screen.

At that instant one of the engineers at the consoles on the other side of the room looked up sharply, “Laser contact! We’re picking up a laser transmission from the roof, Positive acknowledgment from Sokhotsk. It’s relaying out to
Tereshkova
now.”

“Text?” Protbornov snapped.

“Just a call for acknowledgment, sir, coded ‘Tycoon/High from Sexton.’”

Absolute silence descended on the room. Even while the operator was speaking, the signal had been repeated on a portable laser set up by the military inside Anvil two hundred thousand miles away, and transmitted back out in the direction of Earth. Now everything depended on whether the Americans had managed to organize some means of receiving it. Tension mounted as the dialogue between Paula and Foleda continued on the screens. Then, on the screen showing Foleda, a woman approached him from behind, caught his shoulder, and whispered something urgently in his ear. He promptly excused himself and left. In the Russian command room, the suspense became agonizing. Shortly afterward, Borden was summoned away, too. More minutes of agony dragged by. And then the engineer who had spoken previously shouted out in jubilation, “Acknowledgment! A response is coming in from the Americans, via Anvil!”

“Source identification?” another general, who was with Protbornov, queried.

Another of the engineers consulted readouts and tapped keys. “First report indicates they’re using the IROO observatory, sir.”

“As we expected,” the general said, sounding satisfied.

“Text?” Protbornov called.

“Text from Tycoon reads, ‘Sexton/Two from Tycoon/Ball. Signal received. Reading clear. Standing by. Over.’”

“By the czars, we’ve done it!” Protbornov breathed.

“Response intercepted from Sexton,” the first engineer sang out again. “Text reads, ‘Consider it imperative that arrival Soviet VIP cadre Mermaid be confirmed. Voluntary cooperation via Soviet TV judged inappropriate. Am occupying position affording direct visual observation Turgenev center. Personal positive identifications confirmed, list of names follows: Petrokhov, Kavansky, Sanyiroky, Vlasov —’”

Whoops and shouts of jubilation broke out all around the command room. Protbornov emitted a loud belly laugh and slapped Olga heartily on the back, causing her to gasp, while the other senior officers crowded round to pump his hand and offer congratulations. Across the room, on the far side of it all, Major Uskayev smiled as he watched on one of the screens the view being picked up through a telescopic lens by one of the KGB teams posted among the roofs surrounding the air-processing-plant building. It showed the hatless head of whoever was wearing the sandy-colored beard – with the heavy-rimmed spectacles and hair tinted to match the beard, it could have been McCain or Scanlon – peering down from behind a cowling at the edge of the roof, then turning to say something, presumably to the one who was operating the laser. Then the head withdrew from view.

“How are we doing here?” Protbornov asked, having moved across the room.

“They’re like puppets dancing on our strings,” Uskayev said. “And they tried so hard…. It’s almost possible to feel sorry for them.”

Behind the cover of the parapet of the air-processing-plant roof, Peter Sargent unstuck his beard for a second to scratch underneath his chin. A few feet back, sitting comfortably in the recess between a ventilator housing and a stanchion supporting some pipes, Albrecht Haber finished tapping a sequence into the keyboard connected to the laser.

“Bloody stuff makes you itch,” Sargent said. “Where did Razz get it – off a horse or something?”

“Who knows?” Haber answered. “That’s the last of the names. What do you have now?”

Sargent consulted the list of information that he’d compiled in a notebook. “Ah yes, this should take a while. Ready? Message begins; ‘Previously advised data confirmed as follows…’” Sargent started working through the list of weapons emplacements that Paula had described before, going into greater detail about how they had been penetrated, and reiterating that the weapons didn’t exist.

“Let’s hope that Protbornov’s people leave us alone for a while,” Haber said as he worked.

“Oh, I think they will,” Sargent replied breezily. He stretched back and looked up at the sky. “As long as we find things to say, we’re doing a great job of distracting the opposition for them. That means they’ll be perfectly happy to let us stay up here all day if we choose – certainly until their zero hour, anyway…. Care to pass the coffee and one of those sandwiches, old chap?”

Many airplane pilots have crashed to their deaths singing and laughing in their last moments before losing consciousness. What makes hypoxia, or oxygen starvation, so dangerous is its insidious onset and the delirious sense of euphoria that comes just before total collapse, which makes the victim the least qualified to judge the seriousness of the situation.

McCain felt anything but euphoric when he came round. His head felt as if it had been split with a butcher’s cleaver, everything spun nauseatingly, his throat was raw, and his lips stung. He was lying back and being supported, but he couldn’t see anything and was aware only of the pressure against his face. He tried to move his arms to push it off, but had no strength. Pressure around his middle forced him to exhale, then release. He breathed in again.

Where was this? Had he been in an accident?… The fragments of his mind slowly came back together and started functioning again. He was lying on his back, which meant they were off the wall. The others must have gotten him to the top. He couldn’t remember anything of what had happened. Then sudden light blinded him. He tried to turn his head away, but the pressure around his face remained. Someone was shining a lamp in through his facepiece, but the facepiece was being forced down. The urge to struggle welled up, but he didn’t have the strength. After a few seconds it subsided, and he lay with his eyes closed.

He understood now. They had turned his oxygen pressure up and were holding his facepiece down against the seal to stop it from being blown off. Everything was starting to feel quite warm and pleasant. He settled back to doze. Somebody struck him a couple of sharp blows on the side of the head. Now someone was pinching his upper arm through his sleeve – with pliers or something. Jesus – it
hurt
! He shook it off angrily… but the effort had started him moving again. He felt himself being hauled into a sitting position, and opened his eyes to see just a confusion of shapes, lights, and forms. Dizziness swept over him again, and he fought not to vomit inside his mask. The feeling gradually passed.

Now they were tapping him insistently on the shoulder. He opened his eyes again and saw they were on what looked like the same wall of metal panels contained behind reinforcing girders, except that the pattern was now sloping instead of vertical. It curved over and fell away steeply to the right, but seemed to level out above them to the left, like the ridge of a hill. Ahead, the whole ridge curved up and away. Somebody swung a lamp to illuminate a figure standing in front of him, and McCain caught a glimpse of a roof flying by not far above their heads. The figure – McCain wasn’t sure who it was – gestured urgently for him to stand up, and at the same time the two who were supporting him pulled at his arms. They carried him the first few yards with his legs trailing and feet bumping over the metal ribs. Then his legs began working again, feebly at first but improving quickly as blood brought oxygen to his starved muscles.