Delta Green

Chapter Eight

“Okay, Cancha, there’s our window. Punch it.”

“Punched, Nitro.”

Dimatta keyed the “RKT THRST” button on the top row of the keyboard and let the computer take over.

On Tac Two, he said, “Delta Blue, Orange.”

“Go Orange,” McKenna said.

“We just hit the go button and crossed Nitro Fizz’s fingers.”

“We’re right beside you and igniting rockets,” McKenna told them.

Proximity was relative. Delta Blue, as trail plane, was over a mile away, to allow plenty of room for error on Delta Orange’s first excursion above 250,000 feet.

The nose came up by computer magic, nudged through the thin atmosphere by bursts of the Orbital Maneuvering System, and the rockets ignited.

The MakoShark had already been cruising at Mach 7, and the new acceleration gently pushed Dimatta back into his reclining seat. The gravitational pull, monitored on a HUD readout, rose to 3.5. The velocity increased rapidly and steadily: 9.2, 10.4, 12.7, 14.9, 16.2, 17.0.

The radar altimeter provided similar readings, switching at three hundred thousand feet to the simpler indication of miles: seventy-two, eighty-five, 120, 170, 190.

Mach 20.4.

There was no unusual vibration in the fuselage, in his seat, or under his hand, which Dimatta kept loosely fitted to the control stick.

The rocket motors shut down after an eight-minute burn, right on the computer’s schedule.

Though he knew the sensation was only in his mind, everything smelled new.

His environmental suit was new, and the collar ring felt stiff when he turned his head.

His and Williams’s well-worn and well-fitted suits and helmets, loved like his Uncle Albert’s funeral suit, had disappeared along with Delta Green. It had ticked him off to no end.

“Mach two-six-point-one,” Williams intoned, “escape velocity. Still in one piece, Cancha.”

“You, or the bird?”

“Both of us, which is a damned good deal. I uncrossed my fingers.”

At over seventeen thousand miles per hour, the sensation of speed was dulled into almost no motion at all. The globe below them did not seem to move. He picked out the Caspian Sea, the projection of India.

He wondered where, in all of that landscape, his Delta Green was.

“She’s got a good feel to her,” Williams said.

Dimatta couldn’t quite bring himself to think of this MakoShark as “her.”

He tested the control stick, which was finally attuned to the pressures he liked. Easing it sideways to the left, the wingtip thrusters fired, and Delta Orange rolled smartly to the left. He fired the reverse thrusters to stop the roll when the Earth was directly above them.

“Looking good, Orange.”

Just above Dimatta’s head, Delta Blue coasted in. McKenna used his forward thrusters to retard her forward speed and matched velocities with Delta Orange.

“You want me to go clear around you, Cancha, or are you going to give me a roll?” McKenna asked.

“Rolling, Snake Eyes.”

Dimatta rolled around his longitudinal axis three times, slowly, so McKenna and Munoz could examine the aerospace fighter’s skin and fittings.

“Not even a drop of spit on her,” Munoz said.

“We’ll give you an ‘A’ this trip,” McKenna said. “How are the readings, Nitro?”

Williams read off the pertinent temperatures, pressures, and capacities, all of which were also being recorded at Jack Andrews and aboard Themis by telemetry transmissions. “Hell, Snake Eyes, I think we’re getting better mileage than Green got. Even Marla is impressed.”

“Who’s Marla?” Munoz asked.

“My calculating machine.”

“Oh, oh, I think you’re in love, Nitro,” Jack Abrams broke in.

“Where the hell are you, Do-Wop?” Williams asked.

“Cruising the main drag of Calcutta. Just listening in on your test hop, buddy.”

“Red is ditto, Orange. Congrats,” Lynn Haggar said.

The whole squadron had been tracking this maiden flight, and Dimatta felt a little humbled by their concern.

“Everything’s green, Snake Eyes. Smooth as anything you can buy at Frederick’s,” he said.

“Ready to take her back?”

“Nitro?” Dimatta asked.

“Any time. I’m eager.”

“Cancha give me a window?”

“Coming up.”

“We’ll trail you through reentry,” McKenna said, “then split off. You go on back and get hot on the weapons trials.”

“Roger that, Blue.”

“We want you back on active duty as soon as we can get you,” McKenna added.

“Hell, yes,” Munoz chimed in. “You’ve had enough R&R, sittin’ around in paradise, suckin’ up the beer.”

The reentry flight came off without a hitch, and after they came out of the blackout, they were again congratulated by all of the MakoShark crews, by the control towers at Jack Andrews, Merlin, and Peterson, and by General Overton on board Themis.

Brackman, too, wherever he was, came in on the frequency, “Delta Orange, Semaphore.”

“Semaphore, Orange. Got you.”

“Nice going, gentlemen. We applaud you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dimatta said, hoping Williams wouldn’t pipe up with anything, like asking for a pay raise. He remembered too well his last conversation with the commanding general, when he had had to report the hijacking.

Their reentry had brought them in over Moscow at two hundred thousand feet.

“Want a vector, Cancha?” Williams asked on the ICS. “Hell, no.”

He brought the right wing up in a wingover, dropped the nose, and dove, picking up speed beyond Mach 6, rather than losing velocity.

“Hot shit pilot,” Williams said.

“Want to get out here?”

“Not just yet.”

“We’re going for a ride.”

“One that’s not on the test schedule?”

“Probably not,” Dimatta said.

“Go for it.”

The Earth climbed directly at him, and at ninety thousand feet, he eased back on the controller, pulling very slowly into level flight. At those speeds, abrupt maneuvers tended to leave things behind, like wings.

At Mach 4.5, with the MakoShark still coasting, Paris came into view.

He snap-rolled twice.

“All right!” Williams said.

Pulled into a high-G right turn that shoved him toward the left side of the cockpit. The pressure suit built into the environmental suit inflated and deflated as the gravitational force rose and fell, keeping his blood circulating more or less normally. His vision dimmed a couple times when the Gs got too high.

Made a circle fifty miles in diameter.

Lost speed by zooming into the vertical.

Pulled the nose on over and dove again, the Mediterranean peeking at him from several hundred miles away.

More snap rolls.

Dives.

High-G, missile-avoidance turns.

The G-suit ebbed and flowed.

Started the turbojets.

And did it all again, on the jets this time, slowly working toward the Mediterranean.

When he finally leveled out at thirty-five thousand feet and headed south toward Chad, Williams said, “Nothing fell off, Cancha. At least, as far as I can tell.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, that’s just me I’m talking about. I’ve got to get out and check out the bird yet.”

“Yeah, I think she’s going to be all right.”

Marvin Brackman called Vitaly Sheremetevo himself. They were peers in that each was responsible for a major command, and Brackman thought that, during the New Germany crisis, they had become strong acquaintances, if not good friends.

Milly Roget, Brackman’s secretary of so many years that neither of them mentioned them, announced the completion of the call on the intercom. “General Sheremetevo is on line two, General.”

“Thank you, Milly.”

He punched the blinking button and picked up the phone. “Hello, Vitaly.”

“Hello, Marvin. It is good to hear from you.”

“I’m afraid I only make a call to you when it involves business.”

“Yes, I know. Does this relate to the information we provided to Colonel Pearson?”

“It does. I won’t keep you in the dark, Vitaly, but I’d like our discussion to remain confidential.”

“For as long as we might keep it so?” Sheremetevo asked.

“Yes. That’s the way it usually works.”

“I will attempt to keep my lips sealed, as the Americans say.”

“One of our MakoSharks was stolen.”

After a short pause, Sheremetevo said, “Ah, yes. And you now have five or six suspects.”

“Plus we have some other names we’d like to know more about.”

“I will help if I can.”

Brackman pulled the yellow legal pad with Thorpe’s notes close. “General Chestnoy?”

Sheremetevo laughed. “A doddering old fool. He is retired, Marvin. A forced retirement at that. The last time I saw him, it was in a restaurant in Moscow where he was attempting to convince a waiter that he was an air marshal.”

Brackman drew a line through the name.

“General Guriev?”

“The opposite of Chestnoy. He has just received his second star, and he has the difficult position of military liaison to the Ukraine government. He is an intelligent man.” Another line.

“How about Shelepin?”

“Anatoly Guryanovich Shelepin” Sheremetevo said. “I know the man. Or rather, I knew him.”

“He is no longer on active duty?”

“No, he is not. There was speculation that he might have played a role in the… unpleasantness, or at the least, supported the position.”

“Is he being prosecuted?”

“No. I don’t believe there was sufficient evidence, Marvin, and at any rate, he is no longer with us.”

“I see,” Brackman said, drawing a line through the name on the pad.

“He disappeared while on an inspection tour.”

“Crash?”

“Who knows? The airplane, an Antonov An-72, its crew, his wife Yelena Shelepin, and several of his aides all disappeared at the same time.”

Brackman circled the name.

“I see. Without a trace?”

“Without a trace.”

“What was his job, Vitaly? If I might ask?”

“Your CIA probably has more information than I do. He was at Stavka, and to my knowledge, had something to do with clandestine projects. Beyond that, I’m afraid that I cannot help you.”

Brackman scanned down through the notes. It helped that David Thorpe had a precise handwriting, infinitely superior to his own.

“Shelepin seems to have had a strong influence in the career of Alekander Maslov.”

“Maslov. I recognize the name from the list provided by Colonel Volontov, Marvin, but I do not know the man or his connections with Shelepin. It is common, however, for persons of influence to adopt a protégé.”

“It happens here, too, Vitaly,” Brackman said, thinking about how often he had kept McKenna out of trouble. “The last name I have is Dneprovsky.”

“Igor Dneprovsky. He is currently the military attaché to the ambassador to Great Britain.”

“All right, good. Thank you, Vitaly. This is quite helpful.”

“I appreciate your not asking for it,” Sheremetevo said, “but it may be possible for me to obtain a copy of Shelepin’s file. If so, I will forward it to you. Or to your Colonel Pearson?”

Documentation on general officers would be difficult for a peer officer to obtain.

“I wouldn’t want you to go out of your way,” Brackman said, meaning take a risk. “But I’m sure it would be of some value to Pearson.”

“It might be interesting if we could resolve the mystery of his disappearance. As well as some other mysteries.”

“Others?”

“Shelepin associated with other persons of influence in the past years, many of whom also escaped the prosecutor’s examination.”

“I see.”

“There are several, but generals Sergei Pavel of the KGB and Oleg Druzhinin of the Air Force come immediately to mind. All are of the same philosophical leanings.”

Meaning political leanings, Brackman understood.

“There are some,” Vitaly Sheremetevo continued, “in our central government and in several of the republics who strongly believe that we should pick up after our own dogs, if you understand?”

“I understand”

“I would therefore appreciate knowing of anything you might learn.”

“I just made up a calling list, Vitaly. You’re at the top of it.”

Army Master Sergeant Val Arguento accompanied Amy Pearson on her first security tour of the station as deputy commander. The physical — environmental and structural — integrity of the satellite was the responsibility of Brad Mitchell, but the command officers were assigned to the once-a-day inspection duties. It was a frequently shifted roster since Kevin McKenna managed to foul it regularly by being absent when his turn came up.

Every seam, every hatch, and every fuel cell was inspected, along with the readings on the localized sensors intended to detect leakage. The orange hatchways to the specialized spokes, with entries and exits recorded by the keypad access panels, were inspected for utilization by military personnel and for attempts at unauthorized entrance.

At one time, the inspectors initialed sheets of paper placed near each inspection point. Now, however, since Polly Tang had devised the new electronic system, the inspection team members each keyed in their personal access code on a remote communications box, and the report went directly into the mainframe computer.

In the module on the end of Spoke Nine, Pearson said hello to the two technicians manning the controls of the nuclear reactor, then floated about the small space — the reactor occupied most of the sixty-foot-long module — and checked conduit, bulkhead seals, and the access log. Arguento surveyed the pertinent reactor readouts among the controls, monitors, and status lights on the complex console and went over the past day’s log with Navy Lieutenant Otis Rogers. When Pearson and Arguento had each completed their portion of the inspection, they keyed their codes into the computer system, then pressed the pad labeled “INSPECTION OKAY.”

The computer automatically assigned the date and time and recorded the information in its data banks, simultaneously updating the visual readouts in the Maintenance Office and the Command Center.

As Arguento opened the hatch into the spoke, the speaker on the communications panel on the bulkhead blared, “Colonel Pearson, are you there?”

She pulled herself close to the panel, “I’m right here, Donna.”

“We’ve got all kinds of classified data starting to come in for you.”

She looked at the clock on the panel. “It’ll be another hour before I’m finished. Anything pressing?”

“I can’t tell,” Amber said.

Arguento said, “I can finish the tour, Colonel.”

Pearson longed to dig into the fresh information, but shook her head. The station came first.

“In an hour, Donna”

An hour and twenty minutes passed before they completed checking the last civilian laboratory and residential spaces. In the far end of Module Six, contracted to Dow, she had to caution the three chemists about securing unattended lab equipment, but otherwise the inspection was routine.

By the time she got back to her office in the Command Center, Donna Amber had transferred all of the incoming data files to Pearson’s work station and she began scanning them immediately.

A CIA field agent in Berlin had located Yuri Pronnikov working incognito as a waiter in a relative’s restaurant, and that left Pearson with five suspected Mako pilots.

There were no more reports on the other possible pilots as yet, but Pearson was more interested in the names turned up by Brackman.

Shelepin, Pavel, and Druzhinin.

The first name had been one of hers, but the other two were new. Accompanying the names were the CIA dossiers on all three men.

In a separate batch of records, already translated from the Russian, were the old Soviet military records for the three. There was no source identifier on the copied records, and she supposed Brackman or Thorpe had been in touch with General Sheremetevo.

She spent over an hour reading through the extensive files, eliminating items that had been guesswork by the CIA and combining the factual items.

The three men had a number of things in common. They were all in their sixties; they had all held flag rank in the old Soviet military; they had all been staunch members of the Communist Party; they had all grown up together, professionally and politically.

And they had all departed Mother Russia hurriedly at the same time.

Pearson thought that was very interesting.

The details in their military records outlined the times they had been assigned to common commands, which was frequent, and the times they had been decorated or commended by superiors, many of whom were now doing hard time as a result of Commonwealth trials for traitorous activities. The resulting picture in Pearson’s mind was one of men tightly bonded by similar interests and pursuits.

It was not a hell of a lot of convincing evidence, of course.

Also interesting was the fact that Anatoly Shelepin had been assigned as Stavka liaison to the military intelligence directorate for clandestine activities, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye (GRU). He had been the paymaster for covert funds. The position not only gave him access to cash, but to military and political intelligence gathered from all over the world.

Sergei Pavel, also, had had the same opportunities for funds and information. As an assistant secretary in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, he had been in direct contact with foreign intelligence gathering. Within the First Chief Directorate, he had been assigned to Directorate K, foreign intelligence and security penetration, and had been especially active in the Sixth Department, which had been responsible for China, Vietnam, Kampuchea, and Korea.

Oleg Druzhinin was an ex-Red Air Force commander of fighter interceptor groups. He had been with Shelepin in Afghanistan, and Maslov had been assigned to both of them at one time or another.

Pearson liked what she was seeing. On her left console screen, she typed a new listing:

She looked at the names and thought about their files, then added:

Reading through the files again, she noted that, except for Pavel, none of the men had served for any length of time outside the boundaries of the old Soviet Union, discounting Afghanistan. Pavel had done extended temporary duty tours in each of the countries covered by the Sixth Department. She keyed in the possibilities.

Although she fully realized that she was still working with a general theory, based on little substantiated evidence, Pearson felt as if she were getting somewhere. There were enough common ties and capabilities revealed in documentation about the principals, as well as the general factor of their defections, to begin outlining an organization.

She switched to the center screen and quickly wrote a memorandum:

Pearson hit the intercom button for the radio shack. “Amber, Colonel.”

“Coming your way, Donna,” she said and sent the memo and outline for encoding and transmission.

Anatoly Shelepin crossed the gravelled center of his compound in Phnom Penh and entered the second house on the west side. This house had been renovated into office, work, and laboratory areas, and he found his chemists at work on the second floor.

“What is your progress, Comrade Weiss?” he asked the head chemist.

Weiss, nearly seventy years old, had once headed a major chemical complex in East Germany. He waved his hand at the pile of fuel pellets on the stainless steel table. They had been retrieved from the MakoShark as soon as Maslov had returned with it.

“The composition is amazingly simple, Comrade Shelepin. We have determined all of the elements, and now we are conducting random tests to be certain that the proportions are consistent and exact.”

“Excellent. And production?”

“Production will be much less complex than I had expected. We will require a site for the factory.”

“As soon as you provide me the specifications,” Shelepin said, “I will arrange for an appropriate plant.”

Weiss trudged to a desk at the side of the room and picked up several sets of paper. He handed them to Shelepin with a small smile of satisfaction.

“Already complete, Comrade.”

“Again, excellent, Comrade Weiss. I will have Sergei Pavel locate a suitable site.”

“If we could find an abandoned chemical factory,” Weiss said, “we can be producing as much fuel as you will need within three weeks.”

The four camouflaged hills had been rolled away from the runway.

The late morning shadows spread purplish-black tones over everything in sight. Beneath the fringes of the jungle, ii was still black, almost frightening.

General Oleg Druzhinin left the control center and crossed to the runway. The humidity was high, and the perspiration gathered quickly on his forehead. He took his cap off and wiped the sweat away with his forearm.

The MakoShark was sitting in the middle of the runway. Several ground crewmen moved about it as it was prepared for flight. The small tanker truck with the jet engine fuel started its engine and drove slowly away.

Druzhinin approached the craft and found Maslov and Nikitin ready to start up the ladders to their cockpits. He saw that the former names on their helmets had been removed and their own names had been precisely painted in white paint against the blue plastic coating.

“Comrade Shelepin wishes you well,” he said.

“Thank the Chairman for us,” Maslov said.

“I will, Aleksander Illiyich. This is probably your most crucial mission. Certainly, it is the most dangerous, flying into the heartland of the enemy.”

“It is only one of our enemies, General.”

“Still, it is the one to be most feared.”

Maslov smiled, his teeth perfectly white in his handsome face. He held his hand out and demonstrated its steadiness. “I find myself unperturbed, General. In fact, I look forward to this operation.”

Boris Nikitin did not provide the same demonstration. Druzhinin suspected all of the nervous anxiety for the crew would reside with the man in the backseat. Still, Nikitin was the only man, besides Maslov, with experience in the Mako’s rear cockpit. The MakoShark’s electronics systems were more varied and more advanced than those of the Mako, and Nikitin was still learning their intricacies.

“Our comrades will be waiting for you,” Druzhinin said. “The timing should be perfect.”

“And the equipment?”

“The boxes have been constructed exactly to your specifications. I have been assured of that.”

“That is all that I require,” Maslov said. “Will that be all, General?”

“Of course. Be on your way.”

Druzhinin backed away, then turned and walked to the side of the runway.

Nine minutes later, with the turbojet engines screaming, and yet issuing very little flame from their exhausts, Maslov saluted him from the cockpit.

Druzhinin returned the salute.

Maslov released the brakes, and the MakoShark shot down the runway. The steel planks bounced and rattled.

Then the craft rotated, climbing steeply away to the northeast, and the roar of the engines receded. Only two pinpricks of light identified her against the morning sky, and they were soon gone.

Druzhinin was still in awe of the MakoShark. One of them was enough to make the rest of his air force obsolete. As soon as they had a spare hour, he would have Maslov take him for a test ride.

“You see something, Snake Eyes?”

“Maybe, Tiger. Probably a meteorite”

“We’re supposed to look like meteorites.”

“Let’s go look,” McKenna said.

They were cruising eastward at sixty thousand feet over the border between Thailand and Kampuchea, following new orders issued by Brackman’s office to concentrate on the area. Conover was flying a pattern over Vietnam, and Haggar was down at Wet Country for a breather.

“Time?” he asked.

“Ten-five-eight local, jefe.”

“Run the checklist,” he ordered as he pulled into a left turn and started to climb. They weren’t powered and the speed started to bleed off right away, down to Mach 1.2. “Running. What’d you see, Snake Eyes?”

“A momentary burn, could have been any thing.”

“Direction?” Munoz asked.

“Call it zero-four-five, maybe twenty degrees above my horizon. I don’t have a clue as to distance.”

“Going active.”

McKenna followed the checklist scrolling up his small CRT, checking switches and readouts, then ignited the rocket motors. He keyed in a ninety percent thrust and two minutes of time in the keyboard, and let the computer balance the throttles during the acceleration. Manual control of the twin rocket throttles during high percentage burns tended to skid the craft around the skies.

By the time the rocket motors shut down at Mach 4.4, Munoz had completed a radar search of most of their forward quadrants, at various altitudes and at ranges of thirty, one hundred, and 220 miles. The 220-mile range wasn’t absolutely reliable at their altitude.

“Nothing, compadre.”

“Absolutely positive?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s her, then.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. I trust your eyes.”

“But where do we go from here, Tiger?”

“I think we go back to Wet Country and wait for the news reports. We’re not gonna see anythin’ else before we hear about it.”

“Too damned true,” McKenna said, rolling into a right turn. Damn, he hated being on the other side of the fence, with the hostiles flying stealth craft. It made him appreciate how the German pilots he had faced must have felt.

“See if you can find Borneo.”

“How big is it?” Munoz asked.