And so, Misha, what do you think of this . . . ? Ustinov must have asked that same question a thousand times, Vatutin realized, but he’d never suspected . . .
“What sort of man was Ustinov?” the Colonel of “Two” asked.
“Brilliant,” Filitov said at once. “His administrative talents were unparalleled. His instincts for manufacturing processes, for example, were like nothing I’ve seen before or since. He could smell a factory and tell if it was doing proper work or not. He could see five years in the future and determine which weapons would be needed and which would not. His only weakness was in understanding how they were actually used in combat, and as a result we fought occasionally when I tried to change things to make them easier to use. I mean, he looked for easier manufacturing methods to speed production while I looked at the ease with which the end product could be used on the battlefield. Usually I won him over, but sometimes not.”
Amazing, Vatutin thought as he made a few notes. Misha never stopped fighting to make the weapons better even though he was giving every thing to the West. . . why? But he couldn’t ask that now, nor for a very long time. He couldn’t let Misha see himself as a patriot again until all of his treason was fully documented. The details of this confession, he knew now, would take months.
“What time is it in Washington?” Ryan asked Candela.
“Coming up on ten in the morning. You had a short session today.”
“Yeah. The other side wanted an early recess for something or other. Any word from D.C. on the Gregory matter?”
“Nothing,” Candela replied gloomily.
“You told us they would put their defense systems on the table,” Narmonov said to his KGB chief. The Foreign Minister had just reported otherwise. They’d actually learned that the day before, but now they were totally sure that it wasn’t mere gamesmanship. The Soviets had hinted at reneging on the verification section of the proposal that had already been settled in principle, hoping this would shake the Americans loose, even a little, on the SDI question. That gambit had met a stone wall.
“It would seem that our source was incorrect,” Gerasimov admitted. “Or perhaps the expected concession will take more time.”
“They have not changed their position, nor will they change it. You’ve been misinformed, Nikolay Borissovich,” the Foreign Minister said, defining his position to be in firm alliance with the Party’s General Secretary.
“Is this possible?” Alexandrov inquired.
“One of the problems gathering intelligence on the Americans is that they themselves often do not know what their position is. Our information came from a well-placed source, and this report coincided with that from another agent. Perhaps Allen wished to do this, but was forbidden to.”
“That is possible,” the Foreign Minister allowed, unwilling to push Gerasimov too hard. “I’ve long felt that he has his own thoughts on the issue. But that does not matter now. We will have to change our approach somewhat. Might this signal that the Americans have made another technical breakthrough?”
“Possibly. We’re working on that right now. I have a team trying to bring out some rather sensitive material.” Gerasimov didn’t dare to go further. His operation to snatch the American Major was more desperate than Ryan himself guessed. If it became public, he’d stand accused within the Politburo of trying to destroy important negotiations—and to have done so without first consulting his peers. Even Politburo members were supposed to discuss what they did, but he couldn’t do that. His ally Alexandrov would want to know why, and Gerasimov could not risk revealing his entrapment to anyone. On the other hand, he was certain that the Americans would not do anything to reveal the kidnapping. For them to do so would run an almost identical risk—political elements in Washington would try to accuse conservatives of using the incident to scuttle the talks for reasons of their own. The game was as grand as it had ever been, and the risks Gerasimov was running, though grave, merely added spice to the contest. It was too late to be careful. He was beyond that, and even though his own life was on the line, the scope of the contest was worthy of its goal.
“We don’t know that he’s there, do we?” Paulson asked. He was the senior rifleman on the Hostage Rescue Team. A member of the Bureau’s “Quarter-Inch Club,” he could place three aimed shots within a circle less than half an inch in diameter at two hundred yards—and of that half-inch, .308 inches was the diameter of the bullet itself.
“No, but it’s the best we got,” Gus Werner admitted. “There’s three of them. We know for sure that two of them are there. They wouldn’t leave one man guarding the hostage while they were someplace else—that’s unprofessional.”
“It all makes sense, Gus,” Paulson agreed. “But we don’t know. We go with this, then.” That part wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, and fast.”
“Okay.” Paulson turned and looked at the wall. They were using a pilot’s ready room. The cork on the walls, put there for sound-absorption, was also perfect for hanging maps and photos. The trailer, they all saw, was a cheap-o. Only a few windows, and of the two original doors, one had been boarded over. They assumed that the room near the remaining door was occupied by the “bad guys” while the other held the hostage. The one good thing about the case was that their opponents were professionals, and therefore somewhat predictable. They’d do the sensible thing in most cases, unlike common criminals, who only did things that occurred to them at the time.
Paulson switched his gaze to a different photo, then to the topographical map, and started picking his approach route. The high-resolution photographs were a godsend. They showed one man outside, and he was watching the road, the most likely route of approach. He’d walk around some, Paulson thought, but mostly he’d watch the road. So, the observer/sniper team would approach overland from the other side.
“You think they’re city folks?” he asked Werner.
“Probably.”
“I’ll come in this way. Marty and I can approach to within four hundred yards or so behind this ridge, then come down along here parallel to the trailer.”
“Where’s your spot?”
“There.” Paulson tapped the best of the photos. “I’d say we should bring the machine gun in with us.” He explained why, and everyone nodded.
“One more change,” Werner announced. “We have new Rules of Engagement. If anybody even thinks that the hostage might be in danger, the bad guys go down. Paulson, if there’s one near him when we make the move, you take him down with the first shot, whether he’s got a weapon out or not.”
“Hold it, Gus,” Paulson objected. “There’s sure as hell going to be—”
“The hostage is important, and there is reason to suspect that any attempt to rescue him will result in his death—”
“Somebody’s been watching too many movies,” another team member observed.
“Who?” Paulson asked both quietly and pointedly.
“The President. Director Jacobs was on the phone, too, He’s got it in writing.”
“I don’t like it,” the rifleman said. “They will have somebody in there baby-sitting him, and you want me to blow him away whether he is threatening the hostage or not.”
“That’s exactly right,” Werner agreed. “If you can’t do it, tell me now.”
“I have to know why, Gus.”
“The President called him a priceless national asset. He’s the key man in a project important enough that he briefed the President himself. That’s why they kidnapped him, and the thinking is that if they see that they can’t have him, they won’t want us to have him either. Look at what they’ve done already,” the team leader concluded.
Paulson weighed this for a moment and nodded agreement. He turned to his backup man, Marty, who did the same.
“Okay. We have to go through a window. It’s a two-rifle job.”
Werner moved to a blackboard and sketched out the assault plan in as much detail as he could. The interior arrangement of the trailer was unknown, and much would depend on last-minute intelligence to be gathered on the scene by Paulson’s ten-power gunsight. The details of the plan were no different from a military assault. First of all, Werner established the chain of command—everyone knew it, but it was precisely defined anyway. Next came the composition of the assault teams and their parts of the mission. Doctors and ambulances would be standing by, as would an evidence team. They spent an hour, and still the plan was not as complete as any of them would like, but their training allowed for this. Once committed, the operation would depend on the expertise and judgment of the individual team members, but in the final analysis, such things always did. When they were finished, everyone started moving.