The Krone Experiment (2 page)

“We’ve just received word they’ve gone public
with it, and they don’t like an exposed position without good
reason,” replied Drefke. “They’ve walked out of the new disarmament
talks in Geneva.”

“Well, what the hell?” blurted Boswank. “They
just convened a week ago.”

“Exactly,” said the Director, “it was in
their interest, as well as ours, to give a semblance of cooperation
to the talks.”

“Why involve the talks?” Isaacs asked
quietly. “Why choose that particular vehicle for protest?”

“That’s just the point,” said the Director,
addressing himself to Isaacs again. “They now claim we have used
some unorthodox new weapon on them. They made veiled references to
it in Geneva , and then the whole team just walked out and caught
the first Aeroflot back to Moscow. Not the faintest charade of
continuing the talks. Caught our people totally by surprise, and
the press in Europe was on them like a pack of dogs. That was late
morning in Geneva , about four hours ago. The Washington newshounds
will be in full howl by now, too.”

“A new weapon?” asked Isaacs.

“Of course, there’s no such thing, so we
don’t know what’s caused them to be so upset. That makes the
situation damned unstable. I just talked to the President. He had
Ambassador Ogarkov in for a quiet evening chat last night. They
talked for an hour, but aside from vague threats of retaliation,
the President didn’t get very much. Not even a tip about the
walkout. We all know the Ambassador can be very cooperative in
certain situations. In this case he’s under orders to play a very
tight hand. No question but that the Russians are running scared.
The only substantive disclosure was that they think one of their
carriers was attacked in the Mediterranean. They’re hinting that
some form of space-based weapon was directed at the carrier,
igniting jet fuel tanks and causing quite a bit of damage.”

“There’s some basis for that,” said
Martinelli, leafing through a folder. “After our meeting last
night, I put out a general call for possible clues as to what
triggered their alert. We’ve got photos of their carrier, the
Novorossiisk. One of the four Kiev class Protivo Lodochny Kreyser
antisubmarine cruisers. Definitely a fire on board, day before
yesterday. Pretty bad, but no reason to think it was anything but
someone smoking in the wrong place. Until you mentioned it, I
hadn’t given it any particular attention.”

“Why would they think they were attacked?”
asked the Director.

“No clue.”

“And what’s this about space?” inquired
Isaacs. “What did we have up? Presumably we had no aircraft in the
immediate area, and they must know that.”

“As usual, all our aircraft were maintaining
a perimeter,” answered Martinelli. “An SR-71 went over for these
shots after the fire broke out. We have all sorts of space hardware
up, of course, but nothing they don’t know about. I can get that
double-checked, but we seem to be clean. In particular, unless
Defense has pulled a fast one on everyone, there’s not a beam
weapon in the inventory — lasers, particles, what have you — that’s
anywhere near ready to orbit. Hell, we all read “Aviation Week”,
it’s still years away.”

“That’s very strange then,” Isaacs mused,
“from space, in particular, not just from above. I guess that’s why
they’re alarmed, given that they believe it. If we did have an
operating beam weapon in space, the Russians would have good reason
to be frightened. They know how potent those things can be: they
invented them.”

“Well, we can’t have the Soviets running
around with a panicked finger on the trigger,” declared the
Director. “We’ve got to get a handle on this and calm them down.
What else, Martinelli?”

“The aircraft have been refueling in mid-air,
they’re still up. The best guess is that the missiles are targeted
to the eastern seaboard. Boston down to Washington.”

Drefke looked grim. “What about you,
Boswank?” The Director looked down the table at him. “Your people
turn up anything?”

A veil settled over Boswank’s face, as it did
whenever he had to directly discuss his men in the field. “Sir, it
takes time to reach our people in deep cover. We should know in a
few days what the real view is in Moscow. Our man in the admiralty
can be requested to get us the damage report on the carrier. That
may give a clue as to why they think they were attacked, and
how.”

Drefke was distinctly unhappy at the lack of
concrete news. “A few days,” he grunted looking around the table,
“we could be dust in a few days. I’ve got to go to the President.
What do I tell him we’re doing? Waiting for some Russian turncoat
to give us the time of day?”

Boswank winced uncomfortably.

“I want to know what the hell we’re doing
how!” Drefke demanded.

“There’s the new ultraviolet camera and
spectrometer on the FireEye satellite my team launched a week ago,”
said Deloach enthusiastically. “We could divert it to have a look
at that carrier.”

“We need that satellite where it is, Earle,”
said Isaacs, trying to keep the patronizing edge off his voice,
“over the new industrial area in Siberia.” Typical Deloach, thought
Isaacs to himself: he’d look for the lost nickel under the street
lamp where the light’s good. Too bad he doesn’t have the same sense
for good intelligence he does for good hardware.

“The fire obliterated anything useful you
could have seen on deck,” added Martinelli.

“The satellite ought to be stationed over
Tomsk ,” McMasters said with a hint of bitterness.

“We’ve learned everything we usefully can at
Tomsk ,” Isaacs replied patiently. Isaacs was vividly aware that
McMasters had developed the targets at Tomsk and that his ego was
too tied up in them to grant that their usefulness was played out.
He had not made a substantial contribution since. “We’ve been
through the arguments in favor of Siberia in detail,” Isaacs said,
and you’ve resented every one I made, he finished to himself.

“Dammit, let’s stick to the subject in hand,”
Drefke commanded. Isaacs nodded, chagrined at letting McMasters
draw him in.

There was silence for a moment, broken by
Isaacs.

“Surveillance of the carrier is useless, as
Vince points out. The fire will have seen to that. We have to
convince them we had nothing to do with it. They’ll want more than
Presidential assurances. We must figure out what happened to them,
or help them find out for themselves. Nobody on the Novorossiisk
itself, Art?”

“The Novorossiisk?” Boswank shook his head.
“Sure, a few, but they’re the worst for rapid feedback. We can’t
get to them until they return to Russia. We have to go through a
Soviet contact: too dangerous for the source otherwise.”

“Too dangerous?” Drefke asked rhetorically.
“Danger is a paranoid with his finger on the button when someone
pops a balloon. Your sources won’t be worth much if this gets out
of hand. Can’t we get to them more quickly?”

“We could, sir,” replied Boswank, “but if
this blows over, we would have jeopardized a major component of our
network. We must be very careful. In any case the earliest we could
get to them would be when they put into port. We should hear from
our higher source before that.”

“None on the Novorossiisk have access to a
radio?”

“No, sir.”

“I don’t suppose they would let us put an
inspection team on board, as a gesture of cooperation?” asked
Deloach.

“Out of the question!” McMasters was adamant.
“They’d never allow it.”

Isaacs nodded his assent, McMasters was on
target there. “Art can take the most direct step. We need to know
what’s in that damage report to really understand their reaction,
but that will take a little time. How about Ogarkov? Does hе know
the basis for the charges, and would he tell us? Can we find out
how he was briefed, or are there any message intercepts?”

“Links to the embassy are some of the
toughest to penetrate, of course,” replied Martinelli, “but I’ll
put out a call for any intercepts that might give a clue.”

Isaacs looked thoughtful.

“This concrete event has grabbed our
attention. What about related occurrences? Anyone know of anything
that could possibly be tied to this, even indirectly?” The silence
around the table answered his question. “Okay,” he said, “that’s a
loose end that we can try to follow up. I’ll put some of my
analysis people on it, and if we come up with anything, Vince,
we’ll feed it to you.”

Drefke leaned back in his chair. “I want all
the stops out on this. I’ll tell the President we expect the
details of the damage report in a few days, but that’s not good
enough. We’ve given the President nothing to go on; all he can do
is deny our involvement, and in the present crisis atmosphere that
won’t wash. We need a handle on this business, and we need it now.
Martinelli, if you turn up even a hint that we could use as bait or
as a prybar on Ogarkov let me know immediately.”

Martinelli nodded, and scribbled a note on
his pad, “Save boss’s ass.”

“Boswank,” Drefke pleaded, “isn’t there
anything you can do with your d-,” he caught himself, “with your
networks?”

“I can put out a call, but I don’t know much
what to call for,” Boswank replied curtly. “You tell me there’s a
carrier with a fire on deck. What am I supposed to do with
that?”

Drefke stared at him a moment and then turned
to Isaacs, “I’ll also tell the President that we’re doing
everything possible to determine what happened to that carrier, and
why the Russians suspect we are responsible. I expect your
department to give us something to go on.

“Let me remind you,” he glared around the
table, “that until the Russians come to their senses on this, they
are standing with the hammer cocked and the pistol at our head. It
doesn’t matter that we think they’re mistaken. The present
situation is very delicate and very dangerous, and it will remain
so until we here in this room act to defuse it.” He pushed his
chair back, stood, and looked sternly around the table. Then he
turned and left with a brisk stride. The others rose and filed out
of the conference room.

Deloach tailed McMasters down the hall.
Martinelli followed Isaacs and Boswank into the stairwell. “Well,
kid,” he said to Isaacs, “looks like it’s up to us to save the
bacon again.”

Isaacs smiled, then sobered, “This one is
dangerous, Vince. Too unpredictable. Neither side really knows
what’s going on.”

“True enough,” put in Boswank, “but the DCI’s
got a case of first crisisitis if I’ve ever seen one. Damn, if he’d
been around during that Austrian dustup he’d know what a crisis
was. He’s got something to learn about running networks, too.” He
shuffled through the door at the next landing.

Martinelli was silent until they reached the
landing on his floor. “McMasters is really beginning to ride you.
That’s going to blow one of these days.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Isaacs replied.
“I’ll try to keep a low profile, but he’s so stuck on those
outdated programs of his, and, of course, I have to cross him every
time we recommend something more useful.

“Let me know if we can do some snooping for
you.” Martinelli pulled open the fire door and stepped into the
hallway.

“And you let me know if you turn up anything
that might be related to this carrier business.” Isaacs continued
down another floor and went through the door there. He strode
rapidly down the corridor, grabbed the knob on the door marked
Office of Scientific Intelligence, turned it, and went in.

Kathleen Huddleston had started in the Agency
secretarial pool and worked her way up. She had been Isaacs’s
executive secretary for three years now and was as familiar with
his character as she was with the ebb and flow of the workload in
this odd business. She recognized his step and put on a smile of
greeting as the door opened. As he entered, she read his mood with
a practiced eye. The familiar figure looked preoccupied, but more
relaxed than usual this morning. She took in the dark curly hair
only faintly tinged with grey in front of slightly protruding ears.
The ears themselves were pink from recent Sunburn. The hawk nose
rode above thin lips and strong chin. As usual, the eyes stood out,
dark and penetrating, surmounted by surprisingly long, almost
effeminate lashes. The lashes gave him a perennial boyish look
despite the otherwise rugged face. Responding to her smile of
greeting, the eyes crinkled, exercising a growing crop of laugh
lines.

“Hi, boss, welcome back.”

“Thank you, Miss Kate,” he said with a mock
bow, “it’s good to be back.”

“How was Florida ? You certainly got some
Sun!”

He grinned more widely. “I did find some time
for the beach. How have things been? Any excitement?”

“Nothing the DCI and I couldn’t handle.
You’ve just come from the meeting?”

Her voice hinted at a question that Kathleen
had not quite intended. Despite security there was always
scuttlebutt. They both knew that Kathleen was discreetly aware of
many issues that were formally beyond her ken. Documents had to be
typed, and with that responsibility came necessary access. Kathleen
and her cadre were too bright not to put two and two together on
occasion. In this case she had heard nothing and that had caught
her attention and natural, if unwarranted, curiosity.

Isaacs perceived her questioning tone and the
basis for it. The worse the emergency, the tighter the security. A
grimace passed briefly over his face. “Yes,” he affirmed, “I need
you to set up a meeting with the crisis team at,” he glanced at his
watch, “ten-thirty.”

Kathleen nodded and continued, “Bill Bans
wanted some time. I suggested two o’clock and that seemed okay,
unless you want to see him this morning.”

Lord, thought Isaacs, something in Africa
again.

“This afternoon would be better,” he said,
confirming her judgment. “I have a present for you, just to keep
you out of trouble.” He plopped his briefcase on her side table,
reached for his keys and unlocked it. He extracted and handed her a
fat, black-clipped, typed manuscript. “These are the corrections
for the Bulgaria report. I’ll need it Monday morning.” He enjoyed
her mock groan, confident the job would be done quickly and
exactly.