Fallout (45 page)

“Vlad!” Luke exclaimed.

Vlad stopped and sat on the soft green ground. Luke knelt next to him. “Vlad, you all right?”

“Yes, I am fine.” He tried to stand again.

Luke unfastened the parachute from his harness and helped him remove his flight gear. “What happened?”

Vlad stretched his back, then straightened up. “Nothing happened, really. The airplane was fine. Nothing wrong.”

“Did you run out of gas?”

“No, it had gas.”

“Why’d you punch out?” Luke asked, perplexed, then looked up to see if another fighter was around, someone who had shot Vlad down.

“I had to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have been very kind to me, Luke. You have given me everything. Another chance. It is the happiest I have ever been in my life. But I have to tell you: I was not completely honest with you. I was dismissed from the Russian Air Force because I had a drinking problem. I think I have it under control, but it is a constant battle.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can—”

Vlad put up his hand. “The way I got out of Russia got me tied up with some very bad people. They owned me. They were helping Khan, and they tried to force me to join them by allowing Khan to succeed.”

“Are you—”

“Let me finish, please.” He sighed. “I did not help him. I would rather die. But now they know I helped defeat them. I have no chance against them. They have threatened my sister, her children, my mother—whatever I have, they will destroy.”

“Vlad. I’ll help you . . .” Luke protested.

“No. This is my battle. I ejected because you are going to go back to the United States and tell everyone that I was killed. I crashed in landing. Very tragic. Horrible accident, but my name is to be honored. And my Indian friends will tell everyone here that I was killed. Those in Russia who want to kill me will think I am dead.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You called for help when you saw me go down, I assume.”

“Sure.”

“Good. And you sounded distressed and upset?”

“Probably.”

“Good. The Indians will send a helicopter, and you will get in it. They have already sent another one to pick me up.”

“How did they know to do that?”

“I had a chat with Sunil. I told him what I was doing. He said he had some scores to settle with these Russians, too. He offered his assistance.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I am going back to Russia. I have some things I have to attend to.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come back to Nevada. Build the school with me.”

“Who knows? If I make it out again, who knows?” He extended his hand. They shook hands as the sounds of a helicopter came from the horizon behind them.

Luke tried to sleep aboard the Air Force transport plane. He was completely exhausted, but his mind couldn’t stop going over everything that had happened. The more he thought about it, the more he felt as if he’d been operating in the dark. Others had known things he’d only glimpsed.

On orders from the U.S. government, the transport flew straight in to Tonopah—no customs, no international flight terminal, just a gray Air Force airplane landing in the desert so far away from any population center that no one would know it had even arrived.

Every instructor waited with Brian and Katherine in the ready room. Even Thud’s father was there. Bill Morrissey, George Lane, Helen Li, and some other government officials sat in the back of the room. They had arrived unannounced, looking concerned and out of sorts. Katherine had to convince Dr. Thurmond that they could come in. They all stared at the television tuned to CNN.

The President of India was holding a press conference to comment on what had already been reported, that Pakistan had attempted to attack an Indian nuclear power plant but was driven back and defeated by the Indian Air Force. There had been footage of the four downed F-16s, including shots of the Pakistani tail markings and helmets from the dead pilots. The President of India was outraged, telling the world that Pakistan’s claim of a runaway pilot attacking the United States might have been believed, but no one could possibly believe that a strike from Pakistani territory with Pakistani jets and pilots into Indian territory was done without the backing of the government of Pakistan, especially the same week as the attack on the United States. It was impossible. Outrageous. But India was going to resist responding to such an aggressive attack, calling instead for international condemnation of Pakistan, including dismissal from the UN and universal economic sanctions until the government resigned and was replaced by an elected group of what he called “rational” people. Pakistan was obviously beholden to the Islamists and other irrational forces, and India wasn’t going to let them plunge South Asia into a war, he said.

Finally, Luke walked into the ready room. He was smiling, but it wasn’t the smile of a conquering fighter ace returning from the war. It was the smile of someone who was glad to be home, and not in a body bag. Katherine got up slowly and walked to the back of the room. They embraced silently. He kissed her.

Katherine looked behind him. “Where’s Vlad?”

Luke shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”

“What?” Crumb asked.

Luke tossed his flight jacket onto the back of one of the ready-room chairs. “We found Khan. He tried to get the nuclear plant. Vlad had the whole thing figured.”

“What happened?” Stamp demanded.

“We staged off a road. Just Vlad and me, with an entire squadron circling low over the plant in case Khan got through.”

“And you got them?”

“Big night fight. Unbelievable. We ultimately got all of them.”

“How’d they get Vlad?” Crumb wondered.

“They didn’t. We were about out of gas, so we landed on a road in the middle of nowhere. I was rolling out, and before I know it, Vlad’s pitched over, inverted, and hits the ground a half mile from where I am.”

“He just flew into the ground?”

“There was something wrong. He had to have had a mechanical failure.”

“He didn’t get out? What about the magical ejection seat?” Stamp asked.

Luke looked at Stamp and could tell that only Katherine and Stamp were able to see his face. He gave Stamp a quick wink, then said, “You’ve got to eject for it to work.”

Stamp got it. “That’s too damned bad. He was a great guy.”

“How many of them did you get?” Crumb asked.

“We each got two of them.”

“You got Khan? You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Archer?”

“Nope. Ended up having to gun him.”

“You ever fired a MiG gun before?”

“Nope.”

Crumb smiled. “Wish I could have seen that.”

Luke looked around the room and saw the instructors, and Brian, and felt at home. He glanced back at Morrissey, whom he hadn’t even noticed before. “What brings you here?”

“You,” Morrissey said, looking at Helen and Lane. “I brought a nice, wet blanket.” Morrissey walked to the front of the ready room; the instructors watched him. “Congratulations on your flight in India, by the way. Nice job.” Morrissey looked at the rest of the room, then turned to Luke. “The submarine. You thought it was probably a Kilo. Right?”

Luke rolled his eyes. “I told you, I told him,” he said, looking to the back of the room at Lane, “I wasn’t sure. I’m still not.”

“It was our suspicion, and yours, I believe, that Pakistan had been deceiving us all along and was in fact behind the entire operation. They used the rogue Air Force officer excuse, the Islamic radical excuse, to hide. It allows them to achieve their objectives and claim no involvement. It makes our response very tricky, because if we come down hard on them, it looks unfair. Reactionary. Exactly what they would like. But we couldn’t be sure. It could have been anybody’s submarine.”

“We’ve been through all that,” Luke said, glancing in annoyance at Helen Li, who was still sitting in the back of the room.

Morrissey started walking back and forth. “But Pakistan doesn’t have any Kilo-class submarines. Who does? Iran, of course. So we all chased the rabbit that led to Iran. Maybe they picked Khan up off the coast.”

“Exactly,” Luke said. “That’s what India implied. Or at least one guy—”

Morrissey nodded knowingly. “Who exactly?”

Luke was getting an awkward, cold feeling. “Intelligence guy. Gave us the final stuff on when the strike was going to happen. He said they’d been following Khan for years. It was kind of odd. Everybody else left when he was there.” Luke recalled the conversation. “He said he’d told you guys,” Luke said, “but you wouldn’t listen to him. He said the United States always assumed that anything India said about Pakistan was full of lies because it’s in India’s interest to upset our relationship with Pakistan. He said we would never believe what he said. Looks like he was right.”

“When did you see him?” Morrissey asked icily.

“The night of the attack.”

Morrissey nodded. “Good-looking guy. Sophisticated, British accent—more than usual.”

Luke was startled. “How did you know?”

“Sunil, right?”

“How do you know all that?”

Morrissey said nothing.

Lane spoke. “Iran has only two Kilo-class submarines. Both were in port during the attack on San Onofre. The only Kilo not in port was an Indian Kilo.”

Luke looked at Brian and the others, who all looked as confused as he felt. “What are you saying?”

“This photograph is of an Indian Kilo.”

Luke frowned. “Indian?”

Morrissey nodded.

Brian couldn’t stand it anymore. “Why in the hell would an Indian submarine pick him up?”

“The very question I’ve been wrestling with for the last three days. Then I read the Naval Intelligence analysis,” Morrissey replied. “It finally occurred to me, and I checked with several sources—sensitive and highly placed sources we can check with only once. An Indian Kilo was deployed during that time. We thought it was operating off the coast of India. That’s what India told us when we inquired. But our sources confirm that it was somewhere far away and was transiting faster than it had ever transited before. No one knew what it was doing, at least no one I could find.”

“What are you saying? What the hell are you saying?” Brian demanded.

“It is my belief that Khan was assisted by India.”

“What? India? Why?”

“Intense and irreparable damage to Pakistan. There are some new people working in Indian intelligence who aren’t just sitting back and taking Pakistani aggression anymore. They’re becoming much more active, bolder. This is the boldest and most aggressive move I’ve ever seen, if I’m right.”

“They were helping Khan attack us?” Luke asked, his head spinning.

“Khan was what we thought. Part of some splinter group.” Morrissey shifted his weight, obviously debating with himself whether he was saying too much. “We think this entire thing started when the Chief Executive of Pakistan addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. He told them Pakistan was prepared to sign a no-war pact with India, that they were ready for mutual reduction of forces, ready to agree to a nuclear-free South Asia, and ready to talk to India anytime, anywhere, at any level. Khan and his people saw that they were doomed unless they acted quickly, and dramatically, not only against India but to get rid of a Pakistani government that would utter such heresy.

“Khan thought he had an inside guy. A guy I understand who went by the false name of Shirish. He thought he was using Indian intelligence to kill the current Pakistani regime. But Shirish was one of Sunil’s agents, an Islamic Indian, I’m told. He convinced Khan they could help him, even to attack the Indian nuclear plant. He promised to alert Khan if anyone was suspicious of an attack and warn him of preparations. If there were no suspicions, Khan would succeed in his attack and certainly start a war between Pakistan and India. There were already hundreds of men strategically placed by Khan’s group in Kashmir—dressed as both Indian and Pakistani belligerents—to fight in both directions so each side could claim the other started it. They know that the next time there’s fighting over Kashmir, it won’t stop.” He studied their shocked faces. “President Clinton didn’t call Kashmir the most dangerous place on the planet for nothing.”

“And it was all a trap?”

“Sunil lured Khan into a very deep trap. He used him to disgrace Pakistan and—you’ve seen what the President of India is saying—avoided the very war that was inevitable if Khan succeeded. Pakistan has lost its credibility for fifty years. He made sure you were waiting for Khan when he came. He took out perhaps the greatest threat to peace in the region. They were prepared to defend their nuclear plant on their own, but when Vlad offered to help—passed on to India by the Russian intelligence people—Sunil must have laughed out loud. Perfect symmetry. Use an American and a Russian to stop the Pakistani. He didn’t even have to risk an Indian pilot.”

Luke sat down and put his head back. The others in the room simply stared at Morrissey, who continued, “But there’s one thing I need to know.”

Luke didn’t know what to say. His mind was spinning. “What?”

“Did this Vladimir Petkov try to do you harm in India? Did he try to prevent you from stopping Khan?’

Luke shook his head. “No. He kept me from getting killed. Why?”

“We had developed information that he was controlled by the Russian Mafia. And they were tied in with Khan somehow. It’s probably lucky for him that he died over there. If he hadn’t, I’ve got a feeling he’d be on somebody’s shit list.”

Luke continued shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”

Morrissey put his hands in his pockets. “So here’s the wet-blanket part. Nobody else would believe it either. That’s why we can’t go public with it. If we did, we’d look completely foolish. You’d look like a dupe, and nobody would buy it. You don’t even buy it,” he said, looking around the room. “India is the big winner. They get to say Pakistan is full of nuts who attacked the United States and then India. They’ll say that what happened to the U.S. is terrible, and it almost happened to them, but fortunately, thanks to their skilled Air Force, they were able to defeat the attack by the Pakistani Air Force on their nuclear power plant. They’ll rub Pakistan’s nose in this for decades. And Pakistan had nothing to do with it.