Such were the accommodations in the cargo bay of a Russian transport.
Standing beside him, in a parka with fur lining around the face and a headset and oxygen mask of his own, Joe Zavala appeared to be saying something, but Kurt couldn’t make out the words.
“I didn’t copy,” Kurt shouted.
Joe pressed his oxygen mask and its microphone tighter on his face and repeated his thought. “I said, you must be crazy,” he shouted back.
Kurt didn’t respond. He was beginning to think Joe might be right. Holding firmly to a strap that dangled from the side of the airframe like a man on a crowded subway, Kurt turned toward the aircraft’s tail. A crack began appearing near the rear as the ramp in the tail opened.
As the ramp went down, the old jet shook worse than ever, and the wind swirled through the cargo bay, buffeting him and Joe and threatening to knock them over.
The aircraft had been depressurized thirty minutes before, so there was no rush of escaping atmosphere, but the temperature instantly dropped from just above freezing to fifteen below, and the howling of the jet’s engines jumped four notches at the very least.
Kurt stared out the yawing opening into the waiting blackness of the night sky. He was sucking oxygen off a tank and wearing a specially designed parachute. And while he’d made over two hundred jumps in his lifetime, including twenty HALOs (High Altitude–Low Opening), what he was about to try was something he’d never done before, something Joe had been continuously advising him to rethink.
So far, he’d laughed off Joe’s pessimism, calling him a “mother hen,” but now, staring out the back of the jet, Kurt wasn’t so sure.
Letting go of the strap, he stepped cautiously toward an object near the open tail ramp. It looked like a cross between an Olympic bobsled and a “photon torpedo” from the Star Trek series. The designers called it a Single Occupant Tactical Range Insertion Unit. The men who’d tested it out called it the LX, or Lunatic Express.
It worked like a one-man glider. Dropped from seven miles in the sky with a glide ratio of twenty to one, the Lunatic Express could transport its occupant on a one-way trip across a hundred forty miles and do it without a sound or a heat trail or a radar signature, since the whole thing was actually made of specialized plastic and covered with a radar-absorbing layer that looked and felt like soft tire rubber to Kurt.
To fly it, the occupant climbed in, lay down face-first, and grabbed a pair of handles that did not seem too far removed from the grips of an old ten-speed bicycle. He then jammed his feet into what felt like ski bindings.
The most-forward section of the device was a clear Plexiglas windshield with a basic heads-up display projected on it. It gave him speed, altitude, heading, glide ratio, and rate of descent. It also offered a visual glide-slope indicator designed to help the pilot maintain the correct angle and reach whatever destination had been targeted. In this case, that meant the tanker Onyx, seventy-five miles away.
Because of her odd position in the ocean, the Onyx had proved hard to get to. Not only was she far away from the closest shipping lane, there were no air routes anywhere close to her. To fly overhead, even at thirty-five thousand feet, would have been instantly suspicious, but there was a heavily traveled air route seventy-five miles to the south, and on radar the IL-76 would appear as just another passenger jet on the airborne highway. Kurt couldn’t imagine it being worth a second look.
And even if they were watching, no system Kurt knew of would pick up the glider and its single occupant.
It was a simple setup in theory. In the simulator Kurt had felt like he was playing a video game. Somehow the real thing was slightly more intimidating.
“Come on,” he said to Joe. “Get me into this thing before I chicken out.”
Joe moved up to the glider. “Do you have any idea how many things could go wrong with your plan?”
“No,” Kurt said. “And I don’t want you to tell me.”
“The launch could go bad, you could get ripped up by the jet’s wake turbulence, your oxygen could fail, which means you’ll pass out before you can even get down to a safe altitude . . .”
Kurt looked up. “What did I just say?”
“. . . You could freeze to death,” Joe continued, ignoring him. “You could be unable to release the cover or pop your chute. Your feet could get stuck. The airfoils could fail to open correctly.”
Kurt climbed over the rail and into the torpedo-shaped glider, giving up on stopping Joe.
“What about you?” he asked. “You have to stay on this contraption. Did you see the corrosion near the wing root? Did you see that smoke pouring from the number three engine when they all were fired up? I can’t believe this old bird even got up into the air.”
“All part of the Aeroflot experience,” Joe insisted. “Not that I wouldn’t rather be flying American-made, but I think she’s safer than what you’re about to do.”
Kurt wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t. In truth, he believed the transport was safe, even if it shook and rattled and whined like a banshee. But if Joe was going to make him sweat, he was going to return the favor.
“And don’t forget the pilots,” Kurt added. “I think I saw them doing shots of sake kamikaze style right before we took off.”
Joe laughed. “Yeah, in your honor, amigo.”
A yellow light came on. One minute to the jump site.
Kurt locked his feet in, lay down flat, and switched on the video display. As it initialized, he gave the thumbs-up to Joe, who snapped the thin cowling over Kurt’s back, covering him and his specially designed parachute.
A second yellow light came on, and a red light began to flash. Thirty seconds.
Joe moved back out of Kurt’s view and toward the launch control.
A few seconds later Kurt heard Joe counting down—“Tres . . . Dos . . . Uno”—and then with great enthusiasm, “¡Vámonos, mi amigo!”
Kurt felt the glider accelerate backward as a powered conveyer belt sped him toward the back end of the plane. And then he dropped, and was slammed back even harder as the torpedo-shaped glider hit the 500-knot airstream.
Seconds later, a tiny drogue chute deployed behind the glider, and the g-forces from the deceleration hit Kurt as hard as a launch from a carrier deck, but in the opposite way.
The restraint harness crushed Kurt’s shoulders as he slid forward. His arms bent, and his hands bore the rest of his weight, and all the while his eyes felt like they might pop out of his head.
It went like that for a good ten seconds before the deceleration slowed.
Once he got his body stabilized, Kurt scanned the heads-up display. “Four hundred,” Kurt called out to no one but himself. A few seconds later, “Three-fifty . . .”
The glider slowed and dropped, heading toward the waters of the central Atlantic like a giant artillery shell or a manned bomb. Finally, as the speed dropped below 210 knots, Kurt released the chute.
It broke away with a resounding clang, and the descent went from a shaky violent ride to an unnervingly smooth one. The whistling wind was almost completely blocked out by his helmet, and the buffeting was all but gone.
A moment later, as the airspeed hit 190, a pair of stubby wings extended, forced outward by a powered screw jack.
This was the most dangerous moment of the flight, in Kurt’s mind. Prototypes had been lost when the wings did not extend evenly, causing the glider to spin out of control and break apart.
True, he still had a parachute on if that happened, but there was no telling what it might do to his body if the vehicle began to spin out of control or came apart in midair at nearly 200 knots.
The wings locked into place, accompanied by tremendous pressure on Kurt’s chest and stomach, as the glider developed lift and transformed itself from a manned missile on a downward-sloping trajectory to an aircraft pulling up and then flying almost straight and level.
Once Kurt had control, he decided to test the wings to make sure all was working well. He banke
d right and then left. He put the glider back into a dive and then leveled off, and used its momentum to enter a climb.
All systems were go, and despite the danger ahead and all Joe’s pessimism, Kurt could not remember feeling such exhilaration. It was the closest thing he could imagine to being granted the power of flight, like a great bird.
The little glider responded instantly to his touch, and he found he could turn it by using his weight and leaning this way or that like a motorcyclist racing along an open road.
All was dark around him, save the dim illumination of the heads-up display and the pinpoint lights of the stars.
As he maneuvered, he almost wished it was daylight, to enhance the sensation, but to reach the Onyx unnoticed required a night approach. Recreation would have to wait for another day.
Done playing around, Kurt set himself on course, adjusted the glide slope, and settled in. He was at twenty-seven thousand feet, losing five hundred feet per minute, and cruising at 120 knots. According to the target icon, the Onyx was seventy miles away.
51
KATARINA LUSKAYA SAT in a chair in a small cabin on the lower level of the accommodations block of the Onyx. She could only guess at the time, but it seemed like evening. It didn’t matter. The light never changed in her windowless cabin.
She tried to stretch but couldn’t. Her hands were tied and her feet shackled. She’d only been given a minimal amount to eat or drink for the past five days.
As she tried unsuccessfully to rest, the cabin door opened. Andras came in. He was alone. He’d come every day, her only visitor, always to regale her with bad news.
The other scientists were gone, dumped in a foreign country and made slaves. She remained here because he wanted her there, but he could change his mind. No one was looking for her, he insisted. He’d told everyone she was dead.
And so it went, every day. At no time did he mention his plans for her, but from the way he leered and almost drooled she doubted they were anything less than horrible.
Normally, she greeted him with absolute silence, refusing to talk or answer questions. The day before that had ended with a slap across the face and his removal of the water bottle she’d been given. Her throat was so parched now, her mouth devoid of saliva, she didn’t know if she even could speak.
Andras stood across from her, carrying a new bottle of water with him, and she found herself staring at it. He set it down just out of her reach, much like the knife with the key tied to it that he’d offered to Kurt.
“Visiting hours already?” she said, her voice hoarse.
“Ah,” he said. “At last the caged bird sings.”
Defiance and silence had done nothing for her. She decided to be more aggressive. “You’ll be the one in the cage soon. If someone doesn’t kill you. The Americans might be interested in arresting you, but my country has a different way of dealing with aggression. We like to teach people lessons.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I’m well aware of that. You are still clinging to the notion that you are a great power. Like a child with bad self-esteem, you resort to bullying in hopes of proving your strength.”
Some of what he said was true. “It doesn’t make you any safer,” she said. “Your people killed Major Komarov, that was one strike. Taking me will be the second. They will have no choice but to cut you to pieces or look weak, whatever you do with me.”
He almost seemed moved. “Interesting that you use the word choice,” he said, pulling up a chair, spinning it around, and taking a seat, “because we all have choices to make.”
He grabbed the water bottle, twisted the top off, and took a sip. Then he put it back down, once again just out of her reach. He leaned toward her, his arms resting on the chair’s back, his face uncomfortably close.
“Your friend Austin, for instance,” he said. “I gave him a choice. He could choose to save himself or he could choose to die with his friend. I offer you the same choice. Live and prosper or die with those who are about to suffer.”
She held silent again, not sure what he was getting at and yet finding herself thinking only of the water.
“And,” he added with a flourish, “I offer your self-esteem-challenged nation an option as well. A chance at revenge against myself or . . . a way to restore its power and former prestige.”
He pulled a stiletto knife from some hidden pocket and pressed the switch on its side. The blade shot out and locked in place instantly. He held it toward her face.
“I’d ask what destiny you pick for yourself, but words can be so deceptive. Let us see what your actions tell us.”
He grabbed her hands, sliced the rope with the stiletto, and then stepped back.
She waited for a second or two, but her thirst was overwhelming. She reached for the water, conscious that he’d already sipped it. She took a sip and then a gulp, even though she worried that it would make her sick. It took a supreme effort not to gulp the whole thing down.
She stared up at Andras, who hadn’t moved a muscle. She reached for the key. It fit the shackles on her feet. She turned it and she was free.
“You’re letting me go?” she asked.
“Where will you go?” he said. “We’re a thousand miles from the closest speck of land. What are you going to do? Swim for it? Steal a longboat and row yourself to Gibraltar?
He laughed. And of course he was right. There was no escape.
“You have a choice: you can be a prisoner or a guest,” he added.
“What do I have to do to be a guest?” she asked suspiciously.
His eyes traveled over her body admiringly. “You think highly of yourself. You are . . . somewhat desirable, I must admit, but I deny myself the pleasure of having you because there are more important things you can offer.”
She was happy to hear that. “Like what?”
“This ship is not a tanker, as it appears to be,” he said. “It’s a floating weapon of incredible power. This ship can destroy ballistic missiles in flight. It can eradicate an entire naval task force in the blink of an eye. It can be used to sterilize a city without ever blowing up a single building.”
He moved to a couch, put his feet up, and continued.
“The world doesn’t know all this just yet,” he added. “But it will soon. And once it does, I want you to contact your superiors in Russia, tell them who I am, and begin a negotiation for the sale of this weapon. I offer, for half a billion dollars in diamonds, the weapon of the future.”
Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she had a vague idea. “Why don’t you contact them yourself? Surely you know a few people?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “And they know me. But the last time I sold them something, your friend Austin snatched it from their grasp before they could really enjoy it. I’m afraid it left a bad taste in their mouths. It was their incompetence, really, and I felt no need to offer a refund or an apology. Since then, they don’t trust me like they should.”
He did need her help, she thought. Perhaps need was the wrong word, but wanted fit nicely. If he really intended to do what he was saying, her presence could certainly make it an easier sell. But then what? She had no desire to be part of the weapons trade and couldn’t be sure she would survive the transaction once she’d done her part.
Still, there had to be a way to use it to her advantage. Perhaps if she could move around the ship, she might be able to increase her options.
“So I’m supposed to call them, tell them the story you just fed me, and ask for a truckload of diamonds in return for an old tanker hull? They don’t trust me that much either,” she said.
“You are an expert in advanced forms of energy production and transfer,” he countered. “You have a working understanding of particle physics. I’m sure once you’ve had a look under the hood, you’ll be able to convince them what I have is the genuine article.”
He stood. This was what she’d hoped for. She had no idea what to do next, but getting out of that cabin came first.<
br />
“A tour of the ship?” she asked.
“I will show you what you’re selling,” he said and then smiled. “They will be very impressed with what their junior agent has discovered.”
“And when it’s all over?”
“You go with the ship,” he said. “Taking your prize back to Murmansk like a conquering hero returning home.”
She didn’t believe it would end so nicely for her, but there was no sense in showing that now.
“And what about your friends, the Africans?” she asked. She’d heard the argument on the motor yacht. She knew the name Djemma. “Won’t they be upset?”
He smiled. “You’re sharper than I thought,” he said. “Tell me, why do you think I shot that man back there on the boat and left him in the water to float away? Because he made me angry? No. Because he will lead the Americans to Djemma. He already has. An American carrier group is moving in position right now. They will force his hand. I will get my demonstration. And after that, he will be too busy with the barbarians at his gates to do anything but wave good-bye to me.”
She grabbed the water bottle, took another sip, and spoke. “I’ll look,” she said. “And if what you say is true, then I’ll tell them so. And maybe we can trade this water in for something more pleasant, like wine.”
She doubted he would accept the change in her as being anything more than an obvious ploy, but she’d seen the way he looked at her. She would do whatever she could to get him off balance.
52
AFTER THIRTY MINUTES in the glider, Kurt was nearing the tanker. The little green readout on the HUD had his airspeed locked in at 120 knots, and things were looking good. He could even see the tanker in the distance lit up like a monument of white marble in a sea of black.
Two miles out, Kurt released the cowling-like cover that Joe had locked into place. It flew off behind him, and the smooth ride suddenly reverted to a wild one, like cruising the autobahn at top speed in a Porsche convertible.