“At once,” said Buriba. “Do you want just the prime coverage-global positioning system reports and the times the data was downloaded, or do you also want the electro-optical sensor reports, isoelectric focus-”
“Prime coverage will be enough,” Orlov said. “When you have that, correlate the data with the time the goods were transferred from the Gulfstream to the train in Vladivostok and see whether any of the satellites might have seen it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Buriba hung up, and Orlov sat back and gazed up at the black ceiling. Albert Sagdeev’s Office of Space Debris Reconnaissance at the Russian Space Research Institute had been established to track the increasing numbers of discarded boosters, abandoned spacecraft, and dead satellites orbiting the earth and presenting real hazards for space travelers. But in 1982 its staff of five was doubled and it was also charged with clandestinely studying U.S., European, and Chinese spy satellites. Sagdeev’s computers were tied to uplinks across the nation, and watched whenever the satellites transmitted data. Though most of it was digitally scrambled and couldn’t be reconstructed, at least the Russians knew who was watching what and when.
It was conceivable-no, likely, the more Orlov thought about it-that the increase of Russian troop movements over the past few days would have caused the U.S. and Europe to keep a closer eye on military facilities like the naval base in Vladivostok. And in so doing, they may have seen the transfer of the crates from the jet to the train.
But why should that attract enough attention to send a plane after it? he wondered. Especially when the train could be watched from space, if all the U.S. or Europe wanted to do was follow it.
If the plane intended to meet the train, it would prob ably want to spend as little time over Russian territory as possible. That meant an approach from the east, which gave his son anywhere from ten to fourteen hours to prepare.
Still, it was a dangerous undertaking for whoever was running the 76T, and the question remained. Why would anyone bother?
Despite all that was going on, Orlov knew he had to find out why the cargo was so important. He knew there was only one way to do that.
FOURTY
Tuesday, 10:09 A.M., Ussurisk
The pre-War steam locomotive had a rusting boiler plate, dented cowcatcher, and a smokestack blackened with decades of soot. The coal tender was full. The cab was littered not only with coal dust but with souvenirs of previous trips across the breadth of Russia. There were pieces of dry, brittle leaves from the forests of Irkutsk, sand from the plains of Turkestan, smudges of oil from the fields in Usinsk.
Then there were ghosts. The shadows of the countless engineers who had worked the throttle or shoveled coal into the boiler. Junior Lieutenant Nikita Orlov could see them in the whistle’s wood handle, dirty with age, on the iron floor whose studded surface had been worn smooth by the scuffing of shoes and boots. When he looked out the window, he could imagine the peasants who had looked at this engine in wonder and thought, “At last, rail travel has come to Siberia!” The long treks by ox or horse across the Great Post Road were a thing of the past. Now the hundreds of small communities had a lifeline of iron, not mud.
But history was one thing, and urgency was quite another. Orlov would have preferred a diesel engine to this relic, but it was all the transportation director in Vladivostok had been able to spare. If there was one thing Orlov had learned about government and the military, it was that a car or train or plane in hand, whatever the vintage, was more negotiable than nothing. You could always try to swap for something better.
Not that the engine was bad, he thought. Despite six decades of wear and tear it was in relatively good repair, Nikita concluded. The main rod, connecting rod, and driving wheels were strong, the cylinders solid. In addition to the coal tender, it was pulling two cars and a caboose. It traveled at a good speed, over forty miles an hour in the driving snow. At that speed, and with two soldiers stoking the boiler in shifts, Lieutenant Orlov expected to clear the storm within sixteen or seventeen hours. According to his aide and radio operator, Corporal Fodor, that would put them between Khabarovsk and Bira.
Nikita and the blond, baby-faced Fodor sat on opposite ends of a wooden table in the first boxcar. One third of the wooden crates were stacked pyramid style, six rows deep in the far side of the car. The shutter on the right side of the train was open with a parabolic dish clamped to the ledge, facing out. Two cables ran from the dish to the briefcase-sized secure telephone sitting beneath it on a blanket on the floor. Fodor had tacked a canvas sheet over the open portion of the window to keep the wind and snow out. He had to get up every few minutes to brush the wet snow from the dish itself.
Both men were wearing heavy, white, fur-lined winter coats and boots. Their gloves and a lantern sat on the table between them. Nikita was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and holding the backs of his bare hands next to the lantern. Fodor worked on a battery-powered laptop. They had to yell to each other in order to be heard over the screaming winds and rattling wheels.
“It would take, sir, three fifty-mile round-trips by an Mi-8 to carry the cargo to the nearest spot where a jet could land,” Fodor said as he studied the green and black map on the screen. He turned the computer so it was facing the officer. “That’s here, sir, just northwest of the Amur River.”
Nikita looked at the screen, his thick, black brows pulled together in thought. “If we can get a plane, that is. I still don’t understand the trouble in Vladivostok, why there was nothing available but this train.”
“Maybe we’re at war, sir,” Fodor joked, “and no one bothered to tell us.”
The phone beeped. Fodor leaned back and answered it, poking a finger in his other ear so he could hear. A moment later, he moved the lantern aside and handed the black receiver to Nikita.
“It’s Korsakov, relaying a call from General Orlov,” Fodor said, his eyes wide, a trace of awe in his voice.
His expression stony, Nikita got on and shouted, “Yes, sir.”
“Can you hear me?” the General asked.
“Barely! If you’ll speak up, sir-”
General Orlov said slowly, distinctly, “Nikita, we believe that an II-76T controlled by a foreign government may try and intercept your train late tonight. We’re trying to determine who or what is on board, but to do that I need to know what your cargo is.”
Nikita’s gaze shifted from his lap to the crates. He couldn’t understand why his father didn’t just ask the officer in charge of the operation. “Sir,” he said, “Captain Leshev did not share that information with me.”
“Then I’d like you to open one,” General Orlov said. “I’m entering the order in my log and you won’t be held responsible for inspecting the shipment.”
Nikita was still looking at the crate. He had been curious about the contents and, acknowledging the order, asked his father to hold the line.
After handing the receiver to Fodor, Nikita pulled on his gloves and walked across the car to the crates. He slipped a shovel from a hook on the wall, wedged the blade under the lip of the wood, put his foot on thee shoulder of the shovel, and pushed. The edge of the crate squealed and rose.
“Corporal, bring the lantern.
Fodor hurried over, and as the orange light fell on the crate they saw the bundles of American hundred-dollar bills, tied with white paper bands and stacked in neat piles.
Nikita pushed the lid back down with his boot. He told Fodor to open another crate, then walked across the rattling car to the table and picked up the phone.
“The crates contain money, Father,” he shouted. “American currency-”
“Here too, sir!” yelled Fodor. “American dollars.”
“That’s probably what all the crates contain,” Nikita said.
“Money for a new revolution,” General Orlov said.
Nikita covered his open ear with his palm. “Excuse me, sir?”
The General spoke up. “Has Korsakov informed you about Ukraine?”
“No, sir, they haven’t.”
As General Orlov briefed him on the movement of General Kosigan’s armies, Nikita found himself growing irate. It wasn’t just that he felt cut off from the real military action. Nikita didn’t know if his father and General Kosigan had had any contact in the past, though he could tell they were on opposite sides of the incursion.
And that presented a problem, for he would rather be working alongside the dynamic and ambitious General Kosigan than with a highly decorated test pilot … one who remembered he had a son only when Nikita embarrassed him.