“That is a defensible opinion,” Gerasimov commented after a moment. “Dmitri Timofeyevich has raised a thoughtful issue here.” Heads nodded around the table—knowingly, they all thought, but more wrongly than any would dare guess—as the Chairman of the Committee for State Security and the Minister of Defense consummated their bargain with nothing more than a glance and a raised eyebrow.
Gerasimov turned back to the head of the table as the discussion went on around him. General Secretary Narmonov watched the debate with interest, making a few notes, not noticing the gaze of his KGB Chairman.
I wonder if that chair is more comfortable than mine.
19.
Travelers
EVEN the 89th Military Airlift Wing worried about security, Ryan was glad to see. The sentries who guarded the “President’s Wing” at Andrews Air Force Base carried loaded rifles and wore serious looks to impress the “Distinguished Visitors”—the U.S. Air Force eschews the term Very Important Persons. The combination of armed troops and the usual airport rigamarole made it certain that no one would hijack the airplane and take it to . . . Moscow. They had a flight crew to accomplish that.
Ryan always had the same thought before flying. As he waited to pass through the doorway-shaped magnetometer, he imagined that someone had engraved on the lintel: ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE. He’d just about overcome his terror of flying; his anxiety now was of something else entirely, he told himself. It didn’t work. Fears are additive, not parallel, he discovered as he walked out of the building.
They were taking the same plane as the last time. The tail number was 86971. It was a 707 that had rolled out of Boeing’s Seattle plant in 1958 and had been converted to the VC-137 configuration. More comfortable than the VC-135, it also had windows. If there was anything Ryan hated, it was being aboard a windowless aircraft. There was no level jetway to traverse into the bird. Everyone climbed up an old-fashioned wheeled stairway. Once inside, the plane was a curious mix of the commonplace and the unique. The forward washroom was in the usual place, just across from the front door, but aft of that was the communications console that gave the plane instantaneous, secure satellite-radio links with anyplace in the world. Next came the relatively comfortable crew accommodations, and then the galley. Food aboard the airplane was pretty good. Ryan’s seat was in the almost-DV area, on one of two couches set on either side of the fuselage, just forward of the six-seat space for the really important folks. Aft of that was the five-across seating for reporters, Secret Service, and other people considered less distinguished by whoever made such decisions. It was mainly empty for this trip, though some junior members of the delegation would be back there, able to stretch out a bit for a change.
The only really bad thing about the VC-137 was its limited range. It couldn’t one-hop all the way to Moscow, and usually stopped off for refueling at Shannon before making the final leg. The President’s aircraft—actually there were two Air Force Ones—were based on the longer-range 707-320, and would soon be replaced with ultramodern 747s. The Air Force was looking forward to having a presidential aircraft that was younger than most of its flight crew. So was Ryan. This one had rolled out of the factory door when he’d been in second grade, and it struck him as odd that it should be so. But what should have happened? he wondered. Should his father have taken him to Seattle, pointed to the airplane and said. See, you’ll fly to Russia on that one someday . . . ?
I wonder how you predict fate? I wonder how you predict the future . . . At first playful, in a moment the thought chilled him.
Your business is predicting the future, but what makes you think that you can really do it? What have you guessed wrong on this time, Jack?
Goddamn it! he raged at himself. Every time I get on a fucking airplane . . . He strapped himself in, facing across the airplane some State Department technical expert who loved to fly.
The engines started a minute later, and presently the airplane started to roll. The announcements over the intercom weren’t very different from that on an airliner, just enough to let you know that the ownership of the plane was not corporate. Jack had already deduced that. The stewardess had a mustache. It was something to chuckle about as the aircraft taxied to the end of runway One-Left.
The winds were northerly, and the VC-137 took off into them, turning right a minute after it lifted off. Jack turned, too, looking down at U.S. Route 50. It was the road that led to his home in Annapolis. He lost sight of it as the aircraft entered the clouds. The impersonal white veil had often seemed a beautiful curtain, but now . . . but now it just meant that he couldn’t see the way home. Well, there wasn’t much he could do about that. Ryan had the couch to himself, and decided to take advantage of the fact. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out for a nap. One thing he’d need would be rest. He was sure of that.
Dallas had surfaced at the appointed time and place, then been told of a hitch in the plans. Now she surfaced again. Mancuso was the first one up the ladder to the control station atop the sail, followed by a junior officer and a pair of lookouts. Already the periscope was up, scanning the surface for traffic, of course. The night was calm and clear, the sort of sky you get only at sea, ablaze with stars, like gemstones on a velvet sheet.
“Bridge, conn.”
Mancuso pressed the button. “Bridge, aye.”
“ESM reports an airborne radar transmitter bearing one-four-zero, bearing appears steady.”
“Very well.” The Captain turned. “You can flip on the running lights.”
“All clear starboard,” one lookout said.
“All clear port,” echoed the other.
“ESM reports contact is still steady on one-four-zero. Signal strength is increasing.”
“Possible aircraft fine on the port bow!” a lookout called.
Mancuso raised his binoculars to his eyes and started searching the blackness. If it was here already, it didn’t have his running lights on . . . but then he saw a handful of stars disappear, occulted by something . . .
“I got him. Good eye, Everly! Oh, there go his flying lights,”
“Bridge, conn, we have a radio message coming in.”
“Patch it,” Mancuso replied at once.
“Done, sir.”
“Echo-Golf-Nine, this is Alfa-Whiskey-Five, over.”
“Alfa-Whiskey-Five, this is Echo-Golf-Nine. I read you loud and clear. Authenticate, over.”
“Bravo-Delta-Hotel, over.”
“Roger, thank you. We are standing by. Wind is calm. Sea is flat.” Mancuso reached down and flipped on the lights for the control station instruments. Not actually needed at the moment—the Attack Center still had the conn—they’d give the approaching helicopter a target.
They heard it a moment later, first the flutter of the rotor blades, then the whine of the turboshaft engines. Less than a minute later they could feel the downdraft as the helicopter circled twice overhead for the pilot to orient himself. Mancuso wondered if he’d turn on his landing lights . . . or hot-dog it.
He hot-dogged it, or more properly, he treated it as what it was, a covert personnel transfer: a “combat” mission. The pilot fixed on the submarine’s cockpit lights and brought the aircraft to a hover fifty yards to port. Next he reduced altitude and sideslipped the helo toward the submarine. Aft, they saw the cargo door slide open. A hand reached out and grabbed the hook-end of the winch cable.
“Stand by, everybody,” Mancuso told his people. “We’ve done it before. Check your safety lines. Everybody just be careful.”
The prop wash from the helicopter threatened to blow them all down the ladder into the Attack Center as it hovered almost directly overhead. As Mancuso watched, a man-shape emerged from the cargo door and was lowered straight down. The thirty feet seemed to last forever as the shape came down, twirling slightly from the torsion of the steel winch cable. One of his seamen reached and grabbed a foot, pulling the man toward them. The Captain got his hand and both men pulled him inboard.
“Okay, we got ya,” Mancuso said. The man slipped from the collar and turned as the cable went back up.
“Mancuso!”
“Son of a bitch!” the Captain exclaimed.
“Is this any way to greet a comrade?”
“Damn!” But business came first. Mancuso looked up. The helicopter was already two hundred feet overhead. He reached down and blinked the sub’s running fights on and off three times: TRANSFER COMPLETE. The helicopter immediately dropped its nose and headed back toward the German coast.
“Get on below.” Bart laughed. “Lookouts below. Clear the bridge. Son of a bitch,” he said to himself. The Captain watched his men go down the ladder, switched off the cockpit lights, and made a final safety check before heading down behind them. A minute later he was in the Attack Center.