Authors: David Hagberg
Countdown (32 page)
SOMETHING WOKE MCGARVEY FROM a deep, dreamless sleep. He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes before five in the morning. From where he lay on the couch beneath the partially open window he could hear absolutely no sounds from outside, nor were there any sounds from within the apartment building.
He'd returned from the Grosser Müggelsee around midnight, and had listened as the building gradually quieted down for the evening. Background noise. He'd finally fallen asleep around two.
Sitting up, he looked out the window down at the street. A
few automobiles and a small truck were parked along the curb as before. Nothing new. No one had come, and yet he felt a presence that was out of place.
few automobiles and a small truck were parked along the curb as before. Nothing new. No one had come, and yet he felt a presence that was out of place.
Something.
Then he heard it again. A noise out in the corridor, as if someone had shifted his weight, the floorboards creaking slightly.
Snatching his gun, he slipped the safety to the off position and padded across the tiny living room to the door. Someone was out there. He was certain of it. For a single crazy moment he had a vision of Lorraine Abbott coming across the border, somehow finding this place and coming up here. But that was impossible.
Very carefully he switched the gun to his left hand and with his right eased the door lock open. He stepped aside, out of the line of fire in case whoever was out there shot through the door.
“Wer ist?”
he asked softly.
he asked softly.
At first there was nothing, but then something thumped softly against the door frame.
He stood flatfooted listening, straining to make some sense of what was going on out in the corridor. He thought he might be hearing someone breathing heavily, but again he could not be certain.
Switching his gun back to his right hand, he twisted the doorknob and all of a sudden yanked the door open.
A very large, barrel-chested man dressed in workmen's clothes reared back from the wall against which he had been leaning. McGarvey got the instant impression that the man was in pain, and that he was terrified, and then he saw the blood staining the side of the man's coat, and the small hole in the fabric.
“McGarvey ⦔ he breathed hoarsely.
No one else was in the corridor, and he didn't think they had made enough noise to rouse the building. Whoever this one was, he certainly wasn't the opposition. But he was definitely in trouble.
McGarvey stepped out into the corridor and, stuffing the big gun in his belt, helped the wounded man inside, easing him down on the couch. He closed and relocked the door, and then
closed the window, drawing the curtains tight before turning on the small table lamp.
closed the window, drawing the curtains tight before turning on the small table lamp.
The man's complexion was deathly pale. It was obvious he had lost a lot of blood. His left arm hung useless at his side, and his eyes seemed to focus and unfocus. He was struggling not to lay his head back, but he would not remain conscious for very long.
“Hold on,” McGarvey whispered urgently. He hurried into the small bathroom where he grabbed several bath towels, bringing them back and stuffing them inside the man's coat against the gunshot wound in his side, just below his left armpit.
“McGarvey ⦔ the man whispered hoarsely. “You must get out of East Berlin. Tonight, before it is too late.”
“Who are you?”
“Reinhardt Geiger,” the big man stammered. “Lighthouse ⦠I'm from the network ⦠I was sent ⦔ He was wracked with a spasm of pain that cut his words off.
LIGHTHOUSE was the Agency's most important network in East Berlin. It had been going on for a lot of years. McGarvey seemed to remember that the KGB's operation at the Horst Wessel Barracks and in the embassy itself had been infiltrated. The network was mostly workmen, building-maintenance people, along with a few pool typists and secretaries. Their product had never been spectacular, but it had always been steady.
“Who sent you?” McGarvey asked.
“My control officer ⦠one name ⦠he gave me one name. John Trotter.”
McGarvey sat forward, his gut clenching. “What about Trotter? Is my operation to be called off?”
“You must get out of East Berlin immediately. They are waiting for you on the other side. Important ⦠Trotter ⦠very important.”
“Who shot you?”
“They're waiting for you ⦠on the other side. They are expecting you ⦠Wedding ⦠the Wedding Crossing.”
“Was it KGB?” McGarvey asked urgently.
Geiger suddenly reared up and grabbed McGarvey's arm.
“They know about me. They know I received a message. They will come here ⦠McGarvey, you must leave immediately.”
“They know about me. They know I received a message. They will come here ⦠McGarvey, you must leave immediately.”
“You're coming with me ⦔ McGarvey started to say when the breath went out of Geiger in a big blubbering spray of blood, and he slumped forward into McGarvey's arms. He was dead.
For a moment McGarvey just sat there, his thoughts racing in a dozen different directions, all of them down long, dark alleys. Trotter would have known how risky it was to use someone from LIGHTHOUSE to make contact. The network was important. It meant that whatever reason they wanted him out of East Berlin had to be of overriding importance.
Kurshin. The single name crystallized in his brain. He had gotten the data from Rand in Washington, and he had escaped. He was on the move again, his target still En Gedi.
He eased Geiger's body back on the couch and checked out the window again. Still nothing moved below. He had parked his car on another side street a block away. If he could reach it before the KGB showed up he figured he just might have a chance of getting free. But a bitter feeling rose up inside of him that once again he was going to have to back away from Baranov. Once again the man was safe. It was galling.
Â
The streets of East Berlin were coming alive in the predawn darkness as delivery trucks began making their rounds, and early shift workmen headed to their offices and factories.
McGarvey sat in his Fiat on Wisbyer Strasse a block from the bright lights of the Wedding Crossing. In the five minutes he had been there he'd watched two cars and one panel truck crossing into the west. Nothing had come the other way.
He had taken the time to clean out the apartment, wiping it down for his fingerprints, though he could not be one hundred percent sure he'd gotten them all. He had also made certain that Geiger had carried nothing incriminating with him.
Whatever happened now, he supposed that LIGHTHOUSE would have to be closed down, its people pulled out. Again he was struck with the desperation that Trotter must have felt in order to take such extraordinary measures.
No one else had shown up at the apartment by the time he had left, nor had he run into any trouble on the short drive up here. But if there was to be trouble, it was going to happen at the crossing.
The big pistol was stuffed in his belt at the small of his back. It was uncomfortable driving with it like that, but if he needed the gun, he wanted instant access to it.
Putting the Fiat in gear, he eased out behind a truck that turned left on Schonhauser Strasse just before the crossing. He went straight ahead, slowing and stopping under the bright lights, as two soldiers came out of their shelter.
He passed out his Kurshin identification. Geiger had said nothing about it. But McGarvey understood that it was possible his cover had been blown.
“The purpose of your visit to West Berlin this morning, sir?” one guard asked. The other was looking at him, his eyes narrowed.
“That is none of your business, Sergeant,” McGarvey snapped in German.
The guard stiffened.
McGarvey took out his KGB identification booklet and flipped it open. The guard recognized it immediately for what it was, and his attitude changed. So did the other guard's.
“I'm sorry, Comrade Colonel,” the young man said, handing McGarvey's passport back. “You may pass.”
“Of course I may,” McGarvey barked sharply. “Now, be quick about it.”
The soldiers stepped away, and without a backward glance, McGarvey eased the Fiat across to the West. The street opened up, and forty yards across the no-man's-land, he pulled up at the western barrier. This was the French sector of the city. Two French soldiers came out.
“Kirk McGarvey. You were expecting me?”
One of the guards glanced over his shoulder back at the guardhouse. In the semidarkness McGarvey could just make out the form of a man standing there. He nodded. The soldier turned back.
“Yes, sir. You are to drive immediately down to Tempelhof Airport. Someone will meet you at Operations Building B.”
“Who?”
“I don't know, sir. But welcome back.”
“Yeah,” McGarvey said. “Thanks.”
Operations Building B was on the military side of the big airport in the American sector of the city. McGarvey was met in front by an Air Force captain who was not wearing a name tag. He had been expected; the call had come from the Wedding Checkpoint.
“What's this all about?” McGarvey asked.
“I couldn't say, sir,” the captain said. “If you'll just come with me, we have a Learjet waiting on the apron.”
“Where are we going?”
“Naples, sir. And they want you down there on the double.” The captain seemed almost afraid to look too closely at McGarvey. “Do you have to take a pee or something first, sir?”
“It'll wait.”
The morning sun sparkled brightly on the Bay of Naples as the Learjet came in over the water for her final approach, the Air Force captain handling the little plane as if it were a toy. As soon as they had touched down and had completed their landing roll, they turned onto a taxiway and headed toward a hangar on the private aviation side of the airport, bypassing customs and immigration.
John Trotter and another, much younger, heavier man, also dressed in civilian clothes, were waiting for him inside. By the time McGarvey had walked through the door, the Learjet was already heading over to the fuel pumps. The captain would be taking her immediately back to West Berlin.
Trotter was strung out, the other one was clearly impatient.
“Did you have any trouble, Kirk?” Trotter asked.
McGarvey looked pointedly at the other one.
“It's all right,” Trotter said. “This is Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Ainslie. Naval Intelligence. He's in on the entire thing.”
“Is it Kurshin again?”
Trotter nodded. “I think so.” He looked toward the stairs at the back of the hangar. “We've got a place to talk upstairs. You've got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Why here?”
“We figured we'd attract less attention out here than in town,” Ainslie said. His accent was East Coast, almost British. He seemed competent, but McGarvey could see in his eyes that he was as shook up as Trotter, and very angry.
“Geiger is dead.”
“Christ,” Trotter swore. “Were you blown?”
“I don't think so. But it was KGB. He said they knew he had taken a message.”
Trotter thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “It doesn't change anything. We need you here, Kirk.”
There were a couple of mechanics working on an old Beech-craft, but no one paid them any attention as they went to the upstairs office, where another Naval Intelligence officer was waiting for them. McGarvey was introduced to Lieutenant Frank Newman who would conduct the briefing. He had been hastily sent out from the Pentagon and had himself arrived only a couple of hours earlier. The same anger McGarvey had seen in Ainslie burned in Newman's eyes.
“Before we get started,” McGarvey said. “Lorraine Abbott is in West Berlin.”
“I know,” Trotter said. “The Hotel Berlin. Yablonski wasn't expecting it.”
“Our people in Berlin are taking care of it?”
Trotter nodded. “They're watching the hotel.”
There was something not quite right in Trotter's answer, but McGarvey did not pursue it. He turned to the other two men. “What's Kurshin done this time?”
“He's apparently stolen one of our nuclear attack submarines
and possibly killed her crew,” Newman said. He was a short, very dark man with deep-set eyes and thick eyebrows. He had a six o'clock shadow.
and possibly killed her crew,” Newman said. He was a short, very dark man with deep-set eyes and thick eyebrows. He had a six o'clock shadow.
McGarvey whistled, long and low. Whatever Kurshin was or wasn't, he definitely had balls.
“And now the sub is missing?”
“Not quite,” Ainslie said. “She passed our SOSUS line last night out of the Malta Channel, but then we lost her again. But we do know that she's now in the eastern Mediterranean.”
“Submerged?”
Ainslie nodded.
Newman picked it up from there, leading them from the moment the
Indianapolis
had surfaced in response to the apparent SOS from the
Zenzero,
until the Italian pleasure cruiser had been brought back to Gaeta, where Naval Intelligence had taken her apart, coming up with a second, badly damaged Labun canister and the remains of the automatic Morse code transmitter.
Indianapolis
had surfaced in response to the apparent SOS from the
Zenzero,
until the Italian pleasure cruiser had been brought back to Gaeta, where Naval Intelligence had taken her apart, coming up with a second, badly damaged Labun canister and the remains of the automatic Morse code transmitter.
“The
Zenzero
was a decoy,” McGarvey said. “They would have gotten the
Indianapolis
's patrol station schedule from the disk Rand handed over to Kurshin.”
Zenzero
was a decoy,” McGarvey said. “They would have gotten the
Indianapolis
's patrol station schedule from the disk Rand handed over to Kurshin.”
“Somehow the bastards got the rest of the canisters aboard, and ⦔ Newman let it trail off.
“Assuming everyone aboard was killed, how many men would it take to operate the submarine?”
Newman and Ainslie looked at each other. “Many of her systems are automatic,” Newman said. “Ten good men could do it, if they didn't find themselves in a battle situation. Maybe less.”
“Have we picked up any indications that that many Russians had come over in the past few days?” McGarvey asked Trotter.
“We're looking to Rome right now, Kirk. You'll be flying up there this morning, because we've run into a brick wall.”
“The Russians have the
Indianapolis
,” Ainslie said angrily. “There's no longer any doubt about it, nor is there any doubt what they've got planned.”
Indianapolis
,” Ainslie said angrily. “There's no longer any doubt about it, nor is there any doubt what they've got planned.”
“How do we know the Russians have it?” McGarvey asked. “John? Was Kurshin spotted?”
“No,” Trotter said heavily. “Ainslie's people traced the
Zenzero
back to a yacht-leasing service here in Naples. The leasing agent was a man named Arturo Ziadora.”
Zenzero
back to a yacht-leasing service here in Naples. The leasing agent was a man named Arturo Ziadora.”
“We have him in custody now,” Ainslie said. “He finally broke this morning.”
“Kirk, we had the Soviet Embassy files sent down here from Rome. Ziadora didn't know names, only photos, but he positively identified the man who had leased the yacht as Yuri Semenovich Nikandrov.”
“Pick him up,” McGarvey said.
Trotter shook his head. “The Navy has been told hands off this time. Nikandrov is too important. He's the number-two
rezident
out of their embassy, and a special assistant to the Soviet ambassador.”
rezident
out of their embassy, and a special assistant to the Soviet ambassador.”
“You want me to talk to him?”
Trotter nodded. “You have the president's word on this one. No restraints, Kirk. Do you understand? We must know what they are planning on doing with the
Indianapolis
. It's an act of piracy that could very well start a shooting war.”
Indianapolis
. It's an act of piracy that could very well start a shooting war.”
“I know what they're going to do with her,” McGarvey said.
“So do we,” Ainslie barked. “They'll try to take her through the Bosporus into the Black Sea. But we've got a nasty surprise waiting for them.”
“No,” McGarvey said. “Not the Black Sea. Farther east.” He looked at Newman. “How much of a crew would they need to set up one of her nuclear missiles and fire it at a land-based target?”
“While avoiding detection?” Newman asked rhetorically. “More than ten men. Maybe fifteen, or twenty. Navigators, attack center crew, boat drivers, engineers for the reactor, and of course the missile crew.”
“I don't think Kurshin would have brought that many men with him. But if he did, the answers will be in Rome with Nikandrov.”
“They're going to try for the Black Sea,” Ainslie said.
“Israel,” McGarvey said, stepping over to the desk on which a map of the Mediterranean had been spread out. The
Indianapolis
's patrol station off the Italian coast was marked. “What speed is she capable of submerged?”
Indianapolis
's patrol station off the Italian coast was marked. “What speed is she capable of submerged?”
“The book says thirty knots,” Trotter answered.
“More like forty knots,” Newman corrected him.
“If the
Indianapolis
broke out from the Malta Channel sometime last night we're not going to have much time,” McGarvey said. He stabbed a finger at the island of Crete. “Can we set up a monitoring post here?”
Indianapolis
broke out from the Malta Channel sometime last night we're not going to have much time,” McGarvey said. He stabbed a finger at the island of Crete. “Can we set up a monitoring post here?”
Ainslie and Newman had stepped up beside him. “We have a SOSUS station nearby,” Newman said. “It can be done.”
“We'll know within a few hours then,” McGarvey said. “If she turns north, she's headed for the Bosporus. If she continues east, her target will be En Gedi. But that'll depend on the number of crew she's carrying.” He looked up. “Has the president spoken with Gorbachev?”
“Not yet,” Trotter said. “He wants the proof first. But there's another problem we're facing here. The Soviet Navy's Black Sea fleet is running maneuvers south of Crete.”
“The
Nimitz
and her task group are in the region as well,” Newman said.
Nimitz
and her task group are in the region as well,” Newman said.
“Then we'd better hurry,” McGarvey said. “Or a shooting war just might begin.”
“I'm coming up to Rome with you,” Trotter said.
“Has Lev Potok been notified?”
Trotter shook his head.
“Do it, John. Now. Because I'd be willing to bet anything that this is a continuation of Baranov's plan to hit the Israelis. This time we might not be able to stop them.”
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