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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Countdown
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IT WAS COMING lip on fifteen minutes before eight. Night had fallen, but the transporter was bathed in lights that had been hastily strung up around the perimeter of the square and on some of the rooftops. Shadows were long. Where there wasn't light, the darkness by contrast was almost absolute.
Schey had pulled the main panel from the fire control board where he had worked with a test instrument and a soldering pencil for the past half hour. He sat back and looked up, an expression of satisfaction on his face.
“There,” he said. “It is finished.”
Kurshin swiveled around and looked into the tangle of wires behind the panel. A small electronic device had been wired into the firing circuitry.
“Once the fire switch is thrown, the delay circuitry will give us ten minutes to make our escape, no more,” Schey said.
Yegorov had been watching as well. “What if we are delayed?” he asked.
The East German managed another of his pinched smiles. “Then it will be too bad for us, because there is no way of reversing the firing order.”
“Pull out the wires?”
Schey shook his head. “Any tampering with the circuitry from that point will cause the missile to immediately fire.”
Baranov had insisted that Schey be a part of the team. Kurshin could see why now. Not only did he have the technical expertise to pull it off, but he also had nerves of steel. Nothing seemed to agitate him. But then again he had no love for the Jews.
Kurshin glanced at his watch. “Put it back together and change your clothes,” he told Schey. He got up and went to the back of the transporter where he pulled out the civilian clothes that Yegorov had brought along.
The other Russian joined him, a broad grin on his face. “Fuck your mother, but the bastards will never know what hit them.”
Kurshin took off the uniform blouse and laid it aside. He handed Yegorov a small mirror. “Hold this up.”
Taking a handful of skin at the back of his neck, Kurshin dug his fingernails in and ripped it apart, tearing it below his shirt collar and opening his scalp all the way up the back of his head.
Yegorov let out a small chuckle.
Pulling the hair and skin apart, Kurshin carefully pulled the latex life mask forward off his cheeks and temples, and then straight up from his chin, the rubber making sucking and tearing sounds as it peeled away from his real flesh.
He'd worn the mask for twenty-four hours now and the suddenly cool air on his face felt wonderful. Big patches of glue and latex were stuck on his face. He cleaned these off with a towel dipped in alcohol. When he was finished, he took out the
contact lenses that made his eyes blue, revealing his own pale green eyes.
Yegorov lowered the mirror.
They looked into each other's eyes. “It has been a pleasure working with you, Comrade,” Yegorov said so softly that Schey could not hear him. “What about him?”
Kurshin's cold eyes flicked to the East German who was just finishing with the panel. “Leave him to me.”
“He is excess baggage now. Dangerous to us.”
Kurshin nodded. “Yes?”
Something in Kurshin's eyes, however, made Yegorov back down. “As you say,” he mumbled respectfully, and they finished changing into their civilian business suits in silence.
Schey worked his way back and hurriedly changed his clothes as Kurshin went forward and sat down in the right-hand bucket seat. He turned on the radio, but waited until the other two were ready.
They looked at each other in silence, and then Kurshin picked up the microphone.
“Colonel Collingwood, this is Flybaby Six-P-Two. Do you copy?”
“That's affirmative,” Collingwood's voice came back.
“Our demands are simple, but you have only sixty minutes from this moment to comply with them or we will fire the missile. Do you understand this?”
“We understand.”
“First, we will require one of your Cobra gunship helicopters to land here on the square within twenty meters of this transporter. Only the pilot and copilot must be aboard. No other crew.”
“Go on,” Collingwood radioed, and they could hear the tightness in his voice.
“Secondly, we will require one million U.S. dollars in gold bullion. This can be arranged within the hour through the Credit Suisse Bank here in Kaiserslautern. The gold is to be loaded aboard the gunship.”
“Do you realize how much that will weigh … ?”
“Yes,” Kurshin said. “At the current rate of four hundred
thirty-eight dollars per ounce, that comes out to a little less than one hundred forty-three pounds. I believe that will present no burden on your helicopter.”
“I will see what I can do,” Collingwood radioed. “But one hour may not be enough time.”
“I sincerely hope it is, Colonel, for your sake. Believe me,” Kurshin said.
There was a longish silence on the radio.
“What else?” Collingwood finally radioed.
“That is all,” Kurshin replied. “At exactly 2100 hours, I and my crew shall step out of the transporter, cross to the helicopter, and the crew will fly us across the East German border. Your crew, should they not misbehave, will be allowed to return unharmed to the West. The helicopter will remain behind.”
“No, you listen to me, you bastard,” Collingwood shouted, finally losing control.
“No, Colonel, you listen to me very carefully,” Kurshin responded calmly. “You have two further items to consider before you make your decision. The first is the plastique that we have placed around the body of the missile. It has been rewired to be exploded not only by our triggering mechanism, but also by a signal transmitted over a common military frequency. A frequency that the Cobra helicopter you are sending us is capable of transmitting on. From a long distance. If anything untoward should happen we will not hesitate to send such a signal.”
When Collingwood came back on the radio he was subdued. “You mentioned two items.”
“It would be most unfortunate if we were to find that any of the helicopter's electronic equipment … its
radio
equipment … had been tampered with.”
“The second item, you sonofabitch.”
“Yes. The second is that the missile firing control has also been rewired to a similar set of signals. We will be able to fire it from a long ways out. And, once we have left the vicinity, should you decide to make an attempt at disarming either the plastique or the missile firing mechanisms, you will be in for a nasty surprise. Very nasty.”
“Then you have made a very large mistake. That missile is targeted on a Soviet city.”
“That is no longer so,” Kurshin said. “We have reprogrammed its target to a city in Libya. Tripoli. Downtown.”
“You're insane,” Collingwood said softly.
“He's lying,” McGarvey said.
He'd been huddled with an extremely nervous Klaus Kistner, the chief sanitation engineer for the city of Kaiserslautern. The man had been located, hauled away from his dinner, and brought unceremoniously to the square. When Kurshin came on the air, McGarvey had broken away.
“It makes sense to me,” Collingwood said. “There is no reason to disbelieve him.”
Trotter shook his head. “This time I'm going to have to go along with Kirk.”
“There's not a whole hell of a lot we can do about it, no matter what,” Collingwood shouted in exasperation. “The bastard is calling the shots. So we go along with him for now.”
“He's given you an hour. Long before that time is up, that missile will be fired,” McGarvey said.
“At Tripoli … an American nuclear missile. Christ, we'd be done in the Middle East for the next hundred years.”
“Maybe Tripoli,” McGarvey said, looking across at the missile. “Maybe not …”
“Where then?” Collingwood demanded.
“I don't know, but they've reprogrammed the missile's guidance system, in that I think he's telling the truth.”
“But if he launches before the hour is up we'd have no reason to comply with his demands,” Collingwood argued.
“He doesn't care about the gold,” Trotter said.
McGarvey nodded his agreement. “No, a man like him wouldn't. Nor would he take the risk of something going wrong in the air between here and the east zone. We own these skies.”
Collingwood was looking from McGarvey to Trotter. “Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on then?”
“If he means to actually fire the rocket, Kirk, what's his target?” Trotter asked. “What's Baranov up to?”
“And if he doesn't need the chopper to escape, how the hell is he going to get out of there? We've got the entire square surrounded. I've got my people everywhere.”
“You have the
surface
of the square covered,” McGarvey said.
Collingwood glanced at the city engineer who was cowering a few feet away from them, his eyes as wide as saucers. He understood enough English to know at least the gist of what was about to happen here.
“The storm sewers,” McGarvey said. “The transporter is parked directly over a sewer grate. I saw it before the light failed.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Collingwood swore. “They'll have a car waiting for them a few blocks from here, and while we're waiting …”
“Is there a hatch in the floor of the transporter?”
“Just unplug the umbilical cords.”
“Too dangerous. They might have someone watching. If we make a move to tamper with the missile from the outside they might go ahead and blow it anyway. Is there a hatch in the bottom of the transporter?”
“Yes there is, sir,” an Army captain who'd been standing in the background spoke up. He came forward.
“Who are you?” McGarvey asked.
“Jim Hunte. I know that missile, sir. I'm one of the alert crew chiefs. In fact I was on duty when that sonofabitch walked off with it.”
“He can disarm the missile when it's secured,” Collingwood said. “In the meantime we'll cover all the sewer exits.”
“No,” McGarvey said. “They've still got the trigger for the plastique. And unless I miss my guess they'll be programming the missile for a delayed firing.”
“Then what the hell do you want?” Collingwood shouted.
Captain Hunte wore a military .45 strapped to his hip.
“Do you know how to use that thing, Captain?” McGarvey asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you got the tools to disarm the missile?”
“In my car.”
“Get them.”
Hunte's eyes were shining. “We're going to kick some ass?”
“We're going to try to save some. Now, move yours.”
“Yes, sir,” Hunte snapped, and he hurried off.
McGarvey took his Walther out of its holster at the small of his back and cycled a round into the firing chamber.
“I'll start by moving my people out of here now,” Collingwood said.
“No,” McGarvey responded. “The moment he sees that, he'll set the missile to fire.”
“Well, at least I'm going to send a few of my people with you.”
McGarvey shook his head. “Just hold the fort here, Colonel,” he said, and he turned and hurried off into the darkness.
Collingwood was fuming. He turned to Trotter. “Just who the fuck does he think he is?”
Trotter managed a very tight little smile. He took off his thick glasses and cleaned the lenses with his handkerchief. “You don't want to know, Colonel. Believe me.”
Captain Gerry Stewart was still on duty in Missile Control's situation room. He was not a smoker, but in the hours since he had discovered Major McCann's body in the empty missile bunker he had gone through nearly a pack of Marlboros.
The base had been placed on alert. The situation room hummed with activity.
A red light suddenly began to wink on the Six-P-Two Launch Board.
“We have an A Key indicator on the Flybaby,” the technician called out.
The Pershing missile, like most NATO nuclear weapons, was operated on a dual key system. It took two separate keys to activate the weapon for launch.
Stewart jumped up and hurried to the console just as the B Key light came on. He stared at the board in disbelief. Both keys had been activated. Christ. The missile was live now, and starting through its firing cycle.
“Impossible,” he breathed.
The rest of the board began to light up. “We have a firing sequence countdown …” the technician started to say, but then he stopped in mid-sentence. “It's stopped, sir,” he said, looking up.
The firing sequence had stopped halfway through. Something was holding it.
Stewart turned around and rushed for his console where he snatched up his comms phone. “I want Colonel Collingwood. Now!” he shouted.

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