“Mission?” Buxton probed. He was a leader of men and, therefore, wanted to know what the goals of any action were before thinking on the operational details.
Sean gave a quick rundown of the scenario as envisioned by the desk jockeys. “Simple, boys.”
The collective stares were not accepting of the mock analysis. “And nebulous,” Goldfarb added.
Sean couldn’t argue with that characterization with little to go on at the moment. It was akin to knowing you were going to fire at a target, but no one had yet revealed what the target looked like or where it was. Or even
if
it was. “First the spooks have to do some digging to give us an aim point,” Graber said. “Can’t very well go around grabbing just anybody’s nuke.”
“After we grab it, can we shove it up old Fidel’s you-know-what?” Jones wondered aloud, his strict Baptist upbringing coming back to temper his descriptive wordage.
“Unfortunately...” Sean heard the Pave Hawk approaching. “Captain, we’re going to need some stuff from Wally World. I anticipate that this will need to be done fast and in the dark.”
“Quiet, too,” Buxton added. “What do we do with it once we have it?”
“First it has to be found, then we have to do our end, Captain,” Sean said. “Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way first.” He didn’t say that he’d been asking himself the same thing since the colonel’s call.
“Those things scare me,” Buxton admitted.
“Scares everybody,” the major agreed. “They’re supposed to. MAD, remember.”
“Good name,” Buxton commented.
Bad idea
.
* * *
Joe Anderson followed his escort from the west parking lot adjacent to Old Executive. The Secret Service agent had first validated his identification by pure visual recognition, and a second agent did a more thorough check of Joe’s driver’s license and Social Security number before he was led to the northwest corner of the West Wing. He had been there before. He had been many places. And it appeared he was going to add one new stamp to his mental passport.
“I
was
retired.”
Bud DiContino looked up from behind his desk, coming around to greet his guest. The DDI stood from his seat on the couch.
“Guess it didn’t agree with you,” the NSA said, half attempting a joke. “This is Greg Drummond, Deputy Director, Intelligence, over at Langley.”
Joe shook the man’s hand. “Met your boss the last time I was here. Sorry about him.”
“Good man,” the DDI commented. He knew of Anderson’s condition also. “Herb spoke highly of you. So does Bud.”
Joe took a seat on the couch, the other two men taking chairs that faced him opposite the coffee table.
“We can order something from the dining room,” Bud offered.
“No, thanks.” Joe didn’t relish food at the moment, an amplification of his appetite of late. “I hope this isn’t like last time. That kinda shit can kill you,” he said with appropriate gallows humor. The look on the NSA’s face said more than any words could have. “No way. You have to be kidding!”
“I wish I were,” Bud said.
Joe leaned back into the well-used cushions. He had had enough of this from the job that had sent him into retirement, the permanent kind. As former senior member of the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team, his domain had been everything and anything that spit neutrons, he would say. More than running around looking for atomic bombs, the security of nuclear materials in transit had been his primary duty, other than the two times his unique abilities had been put to the test. The first, a happening still classified, had been a success, and Joe had walked away from it with all his white cells intact. The second had been a different story. Scratch one pseudo nuke, and scratch one Joe. Well, at least there was some delay in the final effect. Time for him to get in some last-minute fishing and time with the wife.
Joe looked at the men now tasking him to again do something “only he could do,” and wondered if that northern pike was a goner for good. Bad word “goner,” he thought silently. “Spill it.”
“The Cubans may have a nuclear weapon,” Bud said.
Joe laughed, but not at the humor of it. “Another ‘may have,’ eh? Where’d this one come from?”
Bud explained what they knew, which was little more than a series of propositions strung together by chance. Yet it was enough to put an icy look on Joe’s face.
“What is your impression?” the DDI wondered. “I know you haven’t had time to look at anything closely but...”
“First of all, I can’t believe you guys are still sitting here. Where the hell is the President?”
“Don’t worry,” Bud assured him. “There are contingency plans.”
“Contingency plans?” Joe scoffed, laughing this time with incredulity. “Yeah, got any good air-raid shelters around here?” His foot tapped the floor solidly. “I suppose it’s good concrete, but you want to test it against a one-megaton warhead?”
“If they have it, and if they aim it here,” Bud answered with a supposition and a fear. “What we need from you are a couple of things. First, if Castro does have it, what’s the likelihood that it is operational?”
“Not very without maintenance,” Joe answered without hesitation. “That goes for the warhead and the delivery system.”
Bud was a little surprised at part of the response. “I figured the missile itself would require a lot of work to keep it in working order. But the warhead?”
“You obviously haven’t seen them up close and personal, have you?” Joe got head shakes from both men. “I thought not. You see, there’s this perceived elegance about the actual bomb part of a weapon. Sure, when it’s strapped to the top of a booster or slung in the bay of a B-l, it looks real sexy. But if you take it apart, piece by piece, most have over six thousand components. Those are ours, of course. The Russian ones have fewer, mostly because of the safety systems—or I should say lack of on theirs.”
“Theirs?” Drummond asked, wondering how...
Oh.
Joe saw the DDI answer his own question with a moment of retrospection. “Right. Those torps the
Glomar Explorer
pulled up with part of that sub back in ‘74 gave up a lot of their technology. If we’re talking a one-megger from an SS-4, you can expect something at least as crude. Probably more so.
“You see, the safety systems are the most delicate part of the warhead after the actual physics package—that’s the part that goes boom. Now, we didn’t get what I’m going to tell you from the torps, but you probably already know the source anyway. Soviet weapons predating what are
their
third-generation warheads used mechanical accelerometers.”
“Those are the safety systems that prevent if from arming until a pre-set velocity is reached, right?” Bud asked.
“Correct. The Soviets used what are called seismic-mass accelerometers. They’re basically a series of springs and pistons preloaded with tension that will resist the force of a small multidirectional weight until the mass increases by way of velocity to a point that the pistons are tripped. That arms the warhead. Actually the more correct term is it
de-safes
it. Primitive but effective. We use piezoelectric versions that measure the fluctuation in electromagnetic waves, and recently a system that measures actual travel in miles per second based upon GPS readings. There are backups on ours, of course, but my guess is that the one down there would have no backup. If the primary failed, it would arm itself past apogee. At least that’s the intel we got.”
Drummond knew where the intel had come from, as he was sure Bud did also. He wondered if that agent was still just tending his stall in that Kholkoz market in St. Petersburg. It was something he knew he could never check on. Not if he wanted the man to have the chance to live out his life. “But it would be possible to maintain it?”
“Sure,” Joe said, somewhat disbelievingly. “If they...” His face went ashen. “Vishkov.”
“Exactly what we figured,” Bud said.
Joe couldn’t believe it. The little prick was coming back to haunt him.
“Okay, they have someone to keep the warhead functional,” Bud reluctantly admitted. “What about the missile? I thought maybe the Chinese and North Koreans they had—”
“The Cubans wouldn’t need them,” Joe interrupted, running a few figures through his head. “Vishkov was a team leader for a few years with the SRF. That was the Soviet’s form of quality circles and stuff. They were early lookers at the Japanese way, but it never stuck. The teams were supposed to work out all the bugs from all angles in their missiles. I forget what exact project he was on at that time, but it would have given him the knowledge, at least a basic one, of the principles involved in rocketry.”
“So he could have seen to the booster, too?” Bud inquired, his eyes looking toward the DDI. His expression spoke volumes about the growing realization that something terrible had been lurking in their backyard for a long time.
“Let’s see. He came over in ‘82.” Defected, Joe thought. We got snookered with that one. “That would have left at least a twenty-two-year-old booster at that point. Hmmm.” His eyes went to the dark floor, the mind behind them filtering and placing what he knew about the topic in a logical order. “The corrosive effects of the fuel and oxidizer would have started by then.”
Could he really have...?
Bud’s brow furrowed. “Explain.”
“Rocket fuel is notoriously corrosive. That’s why the Soviets stuck with non-storable propellant mixtures for so long.” Joe saw the nonverbal
huh?
on his student’s faces. “Non-storable propellants were like gas in a tank—you pumped it when you needed it. Storable propellants, which the Soviets favored once perfecting them, were made possible by semi—and I repeat semi—stable mixtures. These could be left in the missile’s tanks for long periods without causing damage. Even though the SS-4 was supposed to use a storable combination of red fuming nitric acid as oxidizer and kerosene as fuel, it wasn’t practical to keep the thing fueled since it was a transportable missile. All that extra weight of the liquids was not easy to move around on the back of the TEL. That’s the transporter-erector-launcher. For all intents and purposes it used non-storable combos. See, we put a lot of pressure on Thiokol to perfect solid-fuel motors for the MX. The Minuteman ran on a Thiokol solid also, but they really perfected it with the MX. The Soviets never got big on solid fuel until the late seventies.” Joe thought he was giving too much in this lesson. “Look, what I’m trying to say is that if there was a mating exercise, coupled with a full fueling, as you believe, then there’s a good chance that the thing wouldn’t fly.”
The NSA thought on that for a moment, but the DDI spoke first.
“You mean they may not be able to deliver it? To shoot it at us?” Drummond knew he was hoping, but...
“Do I mean that’s a possibility? Sure. But is it a guarantee? Not on your life.” Joe let out a tense laugh. “Wouldn’t bet on mine, you know. Kinda like throwing down your neighbor’s dead cat as a marker in poker.” It was more gallows humor, something Joe had perfected in the recent past.
“Vishkov could have helped them maintain it, or...what, refurbish it?” Bud asked.
Joe laughed again, though this time because of the role he was being cast in. “Hey, who are the spooks here? Come on. Think! Why the hell else would he be there? You think Castro, if he has a good warhead, would waste it?”
But that would take a major redo.
Joe was doubting his own exhortations.
“You look mighty convinced,” the DDI cracked.
Joe felt the strange aura of
déjà vu
sweep over him.
It was on this same couch, even.
“Maybe I’m not, but I’m smart enough to realize that you don’t gamble on something like this. You also don’t bluff. Why should Castro?”
There was nothing more to discuss. “Okay, Captain.”
“Cut the rank crap,” Joe insisted. His Air Force days were long gone. Somehow the title had stuck with him through DOE, probably because bureaucrats thought any one that knew more than them about something, a reality Joe had frequently been called upon to exhibit, had to be someone of rank or stature. “Just Joe, all right?”
“All right.” Bud hated what came next. “Joe, I talked to—”
“Yeah. When do I leave?” Being the only person to ever disarm a live nuke carried with it the curse that you were often considered the only one who
could
ever do it.
“A few hours.” To make this man do more, when he had already done so much... Given the ultimate in service. “Anything you need is yours.”
“All I need is for you to get me to it.”
“Kind of a repeat performance,” the NSA offered, his knowledge of Joe’s biggest job at the forefront of his thoughts. That one had been successful, but it had also been different.
Anderson knew he didn’t have to answer. Actually he didn’t want to. There were other things more important to say. “I’ll do this.” He looked to both men with a fire in his eyes that could only have been conjured by a mighty wrath. “But I want you to know I hate it. I spent the best years of my life trying to make sure no one got their hands on those things, and all you guys do is keep them around. You keep making them better. What Castro may have down there is ancient, but it can still kill a million people.” That was always a picture his mind trembled at. “A million people. Stop perfecting them, stop making them better, and start getting rid of them.”
“No arguments from me,” Drummond said.
Joe stood. “My wife is gonna be pissed.”
What could Bud say to that? Nothing. The man had maybe a year left, and his government was asking him to come back and give more.
“Maybe I should leave now,” Joe said. “I’m sure whoever I’m going to link up with will want to get used to my sunny personality.”
“No need,” Bud responded. “They’re well versed in the ways of Mr. Anderson.”
Them
. “Well, if that don’t beat all. Thought I’d never see those guys again. Rather wouldn’t have, actually, but if it has to be someone, there’s none better.”
“A compliment? Don’t worry, it’ll stay in this room. I wouldn’t want to tarnish your persona,” Bud joked. “And you can’t leave yet, anyway. The President wants to see you first.”