Around the rust-red container was a cordon of spetsnaz guards, automatic rifles with fixed bayonets facing outward against what menace Korol couldn’t for the life of him imagine. Even the rats in the Kremlin sewers were reputedly required to carry security passes. Certainly nothing was going to happen here to that priceless piece of American technology. It had been sealed and spirited away from SD-1, Mr. Ripley Forte’s secret underground arms factory in Houston, and it would remain thus sealed until opened in the presence of Lieutenant General Grigoriy Aleksandrevich Piatakov, chief of the First Chief Directorate, Foreign Intelligence, KGB. That would be part of Piatakov’s reward for his superlative performance.
“A thoroughly professional job,” said the premier.
“More than merely professional,” added Navori reflectively. “It was in the nature of a complex military campaign conceived by one man and meticulously carried out by that same man down to the last detail. Our faith in Piatakov was not misplaced.”
Korol nodded. There was no question that Piatakov, in the short space of three years, had become the firstranking intelligence operative in the Soviet Union. Moreover, he had accepted with true party discipline assignment to what must have seemed a dead-end job–an exceptional demonstration of loyalty to the regime. Grigoriy Aleksandrevich had cheerfully thrown himself into his new duties. He had accepted the responsibility of completely reorganizing the First Chief Directorate and had done a magnificent job. He had obtained a late-model Brown-Ash Mark IX, which would revolutionize the information gathering and collating duties of Room 101, not to mention its role in national defense. Grigoriy Aleksandrevich had proved himself invaluable; more important, he was absolutely reliable.
“I wonder,” said Premier Korol, turning away from the window and resuming his seat at the head of the conference table.
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary?” said Chairman Baliev.
“On the matter of the election of a new first deputy premier,” said Korol, “I have observed that you have not favored us with your opinion, Baliev. Why not?”
Baliev was married to a cousin of Navori. He was a protégé of Yermolov. And Sedov knew of a certain event in his past that he hoped would follow him to the grave. “All three comrade candidates,” he said finally, “have impeccable qualifications. It is not for me, their junior, to voice an opinion as to whose qualifications are best.”
“A diplomatic reply,” said Korol, nodding. “And in the coming phase of our history, as troubles multiply, diplomacy will be needed at the highest levels, both in external and internal relations.”
He glanced at each of his colleagues in turn. His meaning was clear, and so, as the others thought about it, was the good sense of his choice of Baliev to be first deputy premier and heir apparent to leadership of the Soviet
Union. Baliev was on good terms with the major power blocs within the Presidium. Once superseded at the KGB he would no longer have a power base of his own. His personality was that of a manager rather than an autocrat. He would be a balance wheel, when balance in the higher councils of the USSR was most needed.
“You see the difficulty?” Korol continued, turning to Baliev.
Baliev did indeed. He himself was an efficient, imaginative administrator of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, but his deputy, while an ideal number two man, did not have the brains or strength to succeed him.
Korol, having had his little fun, put Baliev out of his misery. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we will vote, of course, but I personally believe Baliev is the best candidate for the post of first deputy premier. His skills and knowledge as KGB chief will, of course, be hard to replace. But in Room 101 we have an ideal successor: Lieutenant General Grigoriy Aleksandrevich Piatakov. Since a discussion of such an obvious choice would serve no useful purpose, I call for a show of hands on my nomination of Lieutenant General Piatakov to be new chairman of the KGB, to take effect on the election of Comrade Baliev as first deputy premier.”
The vote was unanimous.
Lieutenant General Grigoriy Aleksandrevich Piatakov had put on his full-dress uniform, with medals, for this was a moment he would remember as long as he lived.
Standing at the door of the freight elevator, waiting for the arrival of the Brown-Ash Mark IX, he felt that he had reached the end of a very long road, a road that had led him through all the twists and turns of Ripley Forte’s mind. For Ripley Forte’s mind had been the key to everything.
Every Brown-Ash Mark IX in existence was guarded by regiments of troops behind barbed wire on American military installations, save one. That one was apparently even more inaccessible, for it was buried almost a mile beneath the earth in SD-1 in Houston, and fully as closely guarded. But there was a significant difference: It was under the control of one man, Ripley Forte. If Forte could somehow be persuaded to part with it, there would be no further problem.
Every man had his price. What was Ripley Forte’s? To find out the answer had required study, and for months after Forte had come into possession of the Brown-Ash, General Piatakov had become a full-time student of that unsuspecting Texan. He compiled data on every aspect of Ripley Forte’s character, his past, his dreams, his sex life, aspirations, associations, vices, prejudices, fears, friendships, idiosyncrasies, tics, weaknesses, affectations, loves, and hates. He assigned fifteen of his best agents, in Russia, the United States, and Texas, to discover what moved him to anger, made him laugh, made him cry, hurt his feelings, stirred him to pride.
After the first year, Piatakov knew with a high degree of accuracy what Ripley Forte would do in any situation. He knew that Forte could not be blackmailed, bought, persuaded, or tricked into giving up the Brown-Ash. Some more subtle strategy would have to be devised.
One element of that strategy was Forte’s hatred and suspicion of Russians, whom he held collectively responsible for the death of his father. The emotion was useful because its direction was predictable.
Another element basic to Ripley Forte’s character was raw ambition. He wanted to achieve in life at least as much as his father had done, preferably more.
And there was something else, perhaps most important of all: Ripley Forte was clever, and his cleverness was mixed with a love of irony.
Such were the elements Piatakov had to work with: Forte’s hatred of the Russians, an Old Testament Talmudic lust for revenge against anyone who attempted to thwart or intimidate him, and a serpentine guile.
The rest might have been difficult even for a man of Piatakov’s organizational ability, but the twelve wise men of Oyo–God bless them!–had made it easy. Thanks to his informants at the Oyo Experimental Farm Cooperative, he had learned full details of Project Titanic, the operation designed to sabotage the Alamo on its way to
Texas. Their first option had been anthrax, which would have wiped out the crew; their second the fire, which would have devoured the Alamo, the Sun King, and all its auxiliaries; and their third the atomic bomb, which would surely work had the other two attempts failed.
Forte, not knowing the source of the serial threats, naturally assumed they had come from Russia. The information he had obtained before the first attack would convince him that had he not received it in time, he must certainly lose the Alamo and all its crew. The message suggesting that, as decent compensation, he should give up the Brown-Ash for the information received, which alone had saved the Alamo, would only strengthen his determination to do nothing of the kind.
Nevertheless, the abortive aerial attack had demonstrated to Forte his impotence, and the triangle of fire had confirmed it.
Now came the hardest part, for Piatakov as for Forte: the long wait until the Texan came to realize that only one possible form of attack would prevail against the protection of the combined U.S. naval and air forces: an atomic blast. And the only feasible delivery system would be a mine, as a missile could be detected and reprisals immediately taken against its launching pad.
Forte had discovered the atomic bomb in time–Piatakov had been prepared to give him an anonymous hint, if necessary–and the rest had followed very much according to his predictions of Forte’s behavior patterns. Forte had, as Piatakov had foreseen, prepared a decoy shipment and then spirited away the Brown-Ash through the tunnel to the old U.S.S. Texas berth, thence aboard the Kara Deniz, ostensibly for shipment to Japan.
And now the Brown-Ash was here.
The big steel doors slid back, and the rust-red steel container was trundled out on its dolly into the receiving area by six stalwart spetsnaz soldiers. The Brown-Ash was safe in its final resting place.
Lieutenant General Piatakov heard the tinkle of the telephone from the Presidium in the watch officer’s cubicle.