Overkill (15 page)

Muldoon shook his head, unconvinced. ‘I hope you’re right, but my gut feeling about this is that RAVEN is genuine, and that something is going on that we don’t know about. We
have to take it further.’

‘Oh, we’re going to take it further, Richard, but I’m not – at least, not yet – going to involve the NSC or the President. What we have to do is recover the
’bird and view the films and detector records. Once we have that data to hand, we can decide what to do next. Right, Science and Technology got us into this – what are your
recommendations, Richard?’

Muldoon selected a sheet of paper, glanced over it and then spoke. ‘First, I’d like it on formal record that my Division just implemented the request from Intelligence for the
surveillance flight by the Blackbird – this was not our plan, Walter, and I will not accept responsibility for it. We—’

‘The buck stops anywhere but here, right?’ John Westwood said softly, his normally red face growing a deeper shade. ‘Your Division produced the satellite film analysis, and you
personally recommended taking a close look at the site. The only way to get a closer look was to fly over Russia, which is what Intelligence suggested.’

Muldoon opened his mouth to speak, but Hicks beat him to it. ‘This will achieve nothing. If the whole thing does turn to worms, there’ll be an internal enquiry, and you can all
concentrate on covering your asses then. For the moment, all I’m interested in is retrieving the situation. John, can it. Richard, carry on.’

‘Thank you. In my opinion, the most pressing matter is the recovery of the ’bird, because without the film and detector evidence all we have is conjecture. And the longer the
aircraft stays in Britain, the more questions are going to be asked – there and here. Don’t forget, over-flights of Russia were specifically banned by Presidential order in 1960 after
the Gary Powers U–2 shoot-down. I know we’ve largely ignored the directive since then, but the order still stands. And it will also not have escaped anyone’s notice that
officially the Blackbird was retired from service at the end of 1989. Having one standing on the tarmac at Lossiemouth with obvious battle damage will certainly make people think. The last thing we
want is for the British press to get hold of this. They’re just as tenacious and prying as the
Washington Post
. I suggest that we instruct the USAFE—’

‘I don’t think we’re in a position to instruct anyone, Richard,’ Hicks interrupted.

‘OK. I’ll rephrase that. We suggest that the USAFE tells the Royal Air Force, and their Ministry of Defence, whatever it takes to get the ’bird back to Mildenhall where we can
get things under control.’

‘“Whatever it takes” is a pretty broad statement,’ John Westwood said. ‘What exactly do you mean? You won’t let them see the films?’

‘If that’s what it takes, yes.’

‘You can’t do that.’ Westwood’s voice was quiet but firm. He had headed the Foreign Intelligence (Espionage) Staff for two years and no one had ever heard him raise his
voice much above a normal conversational level in all that time. ‘Remember what RAVEN told us. The covert offensive is two-pronged – one part aimed at us and the other at Europe. Until
we get a handle on what’s going on, the last thing we need is the Brits getting involved.’

‘Why not?’ Hicks asked.

‘Because until we know more about this offensive, we don’t know how we want them to react.’

‘They are supposed to be our allies, remember.’

‘That’s exactly the point,’ Westwood replied. ‘Whatever this offensive is, and there’s precious little to go on at the moment, we should wait until we have the big
picture before we tell any of our allies. We don’t want the Brits or anyone else blundering into action ahead of time and then have to stage a rescue or support them in some ill-advised
action.’

Hicks nodded. ‘OK, that’s worth considering. However, the reality is that they have our aircraft and the films, and we – or rather the USAFE – will have to satisfy them
before we get the access we need.’ He turned again to Richard Muldoon. ‘Let’s look at our options. Can we supply a faked set of pictures – something from the
library?’

Muldoon shook his head. ‘Not a chance. First, they will almost certainly want the films to be removed and developed under their supervision, so making a switch would be difficult if not
impossible. Secondly, don’t forget that the Brits have JARIC.’

‘Remind me,’ Hicks said, looking blank.

‘JARIC,’ Muldoon went on. ‘The Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, their own photographic interpretation unit. Any films we give them will be sent straight there for
analysis. Even if we could switch the films, they’d know within an hour of looking at them, and that would only make them intensify their efforts to find out what we were up to. But if we
give them the real films, they might write the flight off as a temporary aberration by USAFE, or a proving mission to test Russian reactions, or something like that.’

‘OK, but John’s objection still stands. When they analyse the films, they’ll see—’

‘Exactly,’ Muldoon interjected. ‘They’ll see what? They’ll see pictures of six hundred miles or so of Russian tundra. They won’t know what we were looking
for, so they’ll concentrate on the obvious – new buildings, activity at known military units and so on. What they won’t be looking for is a hole in the ground.’

‘They’ll do comparison studies with earlier satellite photographs,’ said Westwood.

‘They’ll certainly try to,’ Muldoon replied, ‘but don’t forget that we’ve denied them access to the footage of that area ever since the last RAVEN
contact.’ He looked over at Hicks. ‘That was just a precaution, Walter, but I think it was wise in the event. They won’t be able to see the vehicle concentrations prior to weapon
detonation, so even if they spot the hole, all they’ll find on the earlier pictures will be tundra and maybe just a few vehicles. And the hill in the tundra was just a hill in the
tundra.’

‘What reason do we give for the flight?’ Hicks asked.

‘Nothing at all. If we tell them a story, they’ll crack it sooner or later and know that we’re up to something. If we tell them nothing, just give them the pictures and let
them get on with it, I believe there’s a good chance that they’ll analyse the films, find nothing of interest, and let the matter drop in a few weeks.’

‘Anyone got any better ideas?’ Hicks asked. Nobody spoke. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Do it.’

Turabah, Saudi Arabia

Sadoun Khamil stared intently at the screen of his laptop computer and read the decrypted text from the email message sent by Hassan Abbas three times, then leaned back in
his chair to consider it. Like his despised infidel counterpart, Dmitri Trushenko, he had expected one of the Western intelligence organizations to stumble upon the operation sooner or later, as
the number of people involved in it grew.

They had, he acknowledged, been lucky so far, but obviously the Americans had suspected or had been told something, hence the flight by the spy-plane. Since the triumph of September 11th, which
had worked even better than Hassan Abbas had promised, their security systems had remained on high alert, and they were even more sensitive than before to the possibility of any further attacks.
Well, Khamil smiled to himself, it was too late now for them to do anything.

Almost all the preparations were complete, and it only remained for the Russians to conclude their phase of the operation, the delivery of the last two weapons. Then Trushenko would implement
the agreed procedure and issue the ultimatum that would permanently humiliate the United States and eliminate the countries of Western Europe as nuclear powers.

Then he and Hassan Abbas would implement their own procedure, agreed to and approved by the al-Qaeda leadership, and about which the Russians knew nothing. And then the world would change,
instantly and for ever.

Sunday
Office of the Director of Science and Technology, Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

Muldoon passed the signal from Mildenhall across the table to John Westwood. ‘This isn’t really your field, John, but you’ve been involved from the
start. You see what it says?’

Westwood read through the text of the signal, then nodded and slid it over to Ron Hughes. ‘The RAVEN message is beginning to make a bit more sense. This is presumably based upon an
analysis of the Blackbird product – by Mildenhall staff?’

‘Yes, with back-up from the recce guys at Beale, who flew across to England a couple of days ago. The ’bird, by the way, was released by the Brits yesterday afternoon, and landed at
Mildenhall about nine, local time. The films were developed at Lossiemouth and copies were supplied to the British there. There were no requests to see the radiation detector records, and now
we’ve got the ’bird back we can keep that data to ourselves.’

‘Any chance that the Beale people have got it wrong?’ Westwood asked.

‘Unlikely,’ Muldoon said, ‘but the films and detector records should be on their way right now from the airport by courier. I’ve got a couple of our in-house specialist
analysts here waiting to look at them. We should have confirmation no later than this evening, but unless they say something different, this is pretty much what we expected, and as RAVEN hinted.
The device on the tundra had a calculated yield of about five megatons. That’s around two hundred and fifty times more powerful than the twenty-kiloton Hiroshima device, but only about one
quarter the yield of the weapons that the old Bear bombers used to carry.

‘The yield calculation was based upon the estimated volume of matter in the hill and the degree of destruction shown by the Blackbird photographs. They had to make certain assumptions,
including the soil type, the depth at which the device was placed and other factors to do with the method of detonation, and the five megaton figure may have to be modified when they’ve had
time to do a full analysis, but they think it’s about right.

‘More important,’ he went on, ‘is the radiation detector result, which was nil. Or, rather, nil significant – there’s always some background radiation. The Beale
experts calculated the theoretical fallout from a conventional nuclear device of that power, made allowances for the weather patterns over the Asian landmass since the detonation, and for the
Blackbird’s altitude, but what they expected the detectors to register simply wasn’t there. What they expected were traces of radio-isotopes strontium 90, caesium 137 and iodine 131,
which are released in all nuclear explosions, but they didn’t find any of them in statistically significant quantities. So it rather looks,’ he added, ‘as if the Russians have
managed to develop some kind of high-yield, but very low-radiation, nuclear weapon. What amounts, in fact, to a strategic-power neutron bomb.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ Westwood said slowly, ‘is why they’d want to do that.’

Muldoon looked at him. ‘Funnily enough, I’ve been wondering about that too.’

‘I’m not with you,’ Hughes interrupted.

Westwood leaned forward. ‘Think it through,’ he said. ‘The balance of terror – Mutual Assured Destruction – was based on the premise that if the Soviets attacked
us, they would suffer unacceptable losses through our retaliatory strikes, and vice versa. Both sides will lose and nobody will win, so there’s no point in launching an attack in the first
place.’ He pointed at the signal sheet that Hughes was still holding. ‘That just doesn’t make sense. The yield from that weapon is certainly significantly higher than from our
neutron bombs, but they were always intended to be tactical or battlefield weapons, not strategic arms. The fear of nuclear weapons is based on the destructive force of the explosion, but also on
the effects of the fallout, the radiation. Take away the radiation, and you take away half the destructive effect of the weapon. And that,’ he added, warming to the theme, ‘would
actually favour the enemy – us.’

‘You’d better explain that,’ Hughes said.

‘Right. Let’s suppose that this weapon test was just a demonstration – in fact, the last RAVEN message talked about a demonstration, so this may have been what he meant –
and that they had developed high-yield but very low-radiation weapons. Now, if the Russians rearmed with weapons like this, and then attacked the States, we would suffer enormous damage from the
detonations. We’d lose whole cities, and the majority of our citizens would be killed, but only – and this is the point – only as a result of the initial detonations and the
massive, but short-term, burst of neutron radiation. Nobody would die from the long-term effects of fallout, because there wouldn’t be any. Within a few days we could begin to rebuild our
cities, without having to wear NBCD suits, and without worrying about contamination.’

‘You don’t paint a very attractive picture, John,’ Muldoon said.

Westwood smiled thinly. ‘I know, I know. It’s a nightmare scenario, but the Russians must have thought it through. Now,’ he continued, ‘we don’t have any of these
fancy new nukes, so if the Russians attacked us we would just have to rely on the good old high-radiation stuff in our subs and ICBMs. And that means that our nuclear response would turn the
Confederation of Independent States into an uninhabitable nuclear wasteland. OK, again, nobody really wins and both sides actually lose, but on points we’d be ahead. The CIS might never be
able to recover. I mean, just look at them now. Even with all the help the West can give them, they’re still trying to sort out the damage caused by the reactor accident at Chernobyl, and
that was over twenty years ago.’

Hughes nodded abstractedly. ‘I hear what you say, John, but the fact is that the Russians quite obviously have developed a new type of bomb, and I don’t believe they did it just for
fun. They have to have a specific purpose in mind.’

‘That,’ said Muldoon, ‘is what’s been bothering me ever since I read that signal. What the hell are they going to do with it?’ He looked over at John Westwood.
Muldoon was a planner and a specialist in technical surveillance techniques, but he knew almost nothing about HUMINT – human intelligence, or espionage. Satellites and reconnaissance
platforms provided very precise information about hardware, but no data whatsoever about the intentions of the people who were building that hardware. For that, you needed an agent in place,
somebody who could ask the right questions or listen to the right answers.