Deep Black

63

Rubens stood at the front of the Art Room, adjusting his headset as he waited for the Moscow assassination team to check in. The Art Room was establishing full contact mode, connecting with the CIA’s situation room and the Tank at the Pentagon as well as its field teams and supervisors. Had-ash paced nervously below the big screen, sweat pouring down his collar.

“Five,” said Al Austin, the CIA supervisor in Moscow. He was at a post near the Kremlin, running the crews keeping tabs on Kurakin and trying to prevent — or at least detect — an assassination attempt.

Two other teams finished the check-in, reporting from surveillance posts that were covering secondary access routes to the capital. Their efforts duplicated that of the NSA’s own sensors, but in an operation like this there was no such thing as too much redundancy.

“All right, now that we’re all on the line, we’re going to run through the latest intelligence,” said Rubens. He introduced Segio Nakami, who ran down the analysis on the latest intercepts.

Nakami was Johnny Bib’s second in command. Johnny had insisted on hunkering with the crypto people, who were working furiously to break down a new cipher that had appeared in the military intercepts. While finding the keys and decrypting the messages would yield considerable information, they would settle for any discernible patterns of its use that would yield information related to the coup. Rubens agreed that Johnny was more valuable there — and besides, he was acting a little peculiar even for him.

Nakami explained that sixteen different military units had been positively linked to the coup; several others had been ordered to their barracks. All of the orders had emanated from the defense ministry, again pointing to Perovskaya. The one odd thing was that they were in a cipher that had been discontinued some months before, probably because the Russians suspected the Americans could read it easily. This was probably simply a mistake, added Nakami, though they were open to other interpretations.

No one gave any.

All of these units would be cut off when the coup began. Piranha — a virus designed to disable the military computers — would be launched from the Art Room at the push of a small button on Telach’s console. Two other virus attacks were also ready. Communications disrupters — basically very large vans containing equipment similar to that carried by electronic warfare planes — were stationed near the military bases and in several key Moscow locations. These would be used to throw a blanket around the city and the rebelling units.

Other resources had been mobilized to monitor the spread and effect of the attack. Besides the existing sensor and satellite net, four Navy ships and nearly a dozen “joint” project aircraft were either loitering or standing by to launch. A schedule had been worked out to feed them onto stations piecemeal, hoping not to attract too much attention. And of course there was a large number of sensors already on-line to help monitor what was going on.

The individual units gave their own short briefs. The CIA people were more than a little testy, mostly reflecting Langley’s pique that this wasn’t “their” operation. There also was some unvoiced but nonetheless discernible resentment that they were putting their own necks out for the Russian president — a not unreasonable emotion, Rubens thought.

Austin began complaining that he didn’t have enough people to cover Kurakin and managed to detour into a complaint that the NSA team that had been sent over had left without telling him where they were going.

“Are you saying, Mr. Austin, that you can’t handle the assignment?” asked Rubens. Rockman had briefed him on Karr’s concerns and the latest developments; once again the field officer had instinctively followed the right course of action. But that was why Tommy was there.

“No,” said Austin. “I can handle it fine.”

“Then do so.”

“We have movement,” said Telach, raising her hand a few feet away. “Infantry division near Tula.”

“We have one unit moving,” said Rubens, swinging his mike down in front of his face and addressing everyone on the common circuit. “We wait for another unit to confirm. Then we move. As planned.”

He put his hand on Rockman’s shoulder, listening as Telach relayed information about the contact. It was an eavesdropping bug; that was not enough to go on.

“I’m bringing up a satellite image,” she said.

A satellite photo filled about half of the massive screen at the front of the room. The infantry base was laid out like two half-wheels, with barracks as spokes and vehicles parked in large lots to their right. It took Rubens a few seconds to orient himself to the images; at first glance he thought the barracks were the vehicles.

“This picture’s ten minutes old, for reference,” said Te-lach. “Here’s the most recent, ninety-two seconds ago.”

Another image flashed on the screen to the right of the first. They seemed identical — and in fact were, as Telach showed with an overlay.

A fresh overlay thirty seconds later confirmed that the unit had not in fact moved.

“Have the unit on the gate check their equipment,” Rubens told her. “No more false alarms.”