Deep Lie (10 page)
“Was’ is the operative word, Kate. He’s not there any more. Probably out in the Gulag somewhere, paying for his sins.”
Rule shrugged.
“Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Anyway. it can’t hurt to know where he is. From the little I know about him, I’d prefer it if he were in the Gulag. He’s a little too swift for my taste. I like plodders, and he sure ain’t one of those. I can promise you, wherever he is, he’s up to no good.”
“Oh, all right.” Nixon sighed, reaching for a pen, “but I’m probably just going to get a snotty memo back about allocation of resources. You know how those guys are.”
He signed the paper.
Rule snatched it up and started for the door.
“Thanks, Alan, I’ll get this right off.”
“Kate!” He stopped her in her tracks.
“Don’t come back to me for any more high tech requests on this thing unless you can come up with something of substance, you hear? Sniff around, if it doesn’t interfere with your other work, but I’m not going to start pissing away resources with nothing but your… intuition to back me up. Last time I went with that I got strung up by my… thumbs, you’ll remember.”
“Sure. Alan, I promise,” she said, then fled the office with her cheeks burning. She had spent six weeks a year earlier chasing down a Soviet GRU man who. it turned out, had died of a coronary at his desk two years before.
Nixon trotted that out whenever he wanted her leash kept short. This one wasn’t like that, though, she thought. This was a live one, she knew it. Nixon had stopped himself short of saying “woman’s” intuition, but that was what he had been thinking. It was one of the things she had to put up with. HELDER filed into a small theater with some fifty other men and took a seat in the front row. In the two weeks since his arrival, it was the first time he had attended any training with others. He looked about him at the others, and there was a sameness he had not encountered before. In any Soviet military unit one could expect to see evidence of the multiethnic makeup of the Union of Soviet Republics, with its fifteen states and dozens of ethnic types and languages. He knew that the majority of many army units, in particular, did not even speak Russian and had to be commanded through a limited number of basic commands. But here everyone spoke not just Russian, but English and/or Swedish, and in appearance, the group looked quite uniformly Scandinavian or, at least. North European.
At the front of the theater, before a blank wall, was a table on which lay a number of small weapons, some of which he had never seen before. Hanging on the arm of each seat was a pair of industrial earmuffs, the sort worn by both civilian and military ground personnel around jet airplanes. As soon as they were settled, Majorov strode into the room, dressed in military-style coveralls and followed by a man carrying two metal ammunition boxes.
Majorov walked to the center of the theater and stood in front of the table holding the weapons.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, smiling slightly.
“We have now completed the acquisition of your small arms, and I would like to introduce you to them. In general, our operation will be conducted in three waves: the infiltrators, the shock troops, and the conventional troops.” Majorov picked up two small automatic pistols and held them up to be seen.
“Those of you who will lead infiltrator teams will be given sidearms only. for obvious reasons. Just as obvious, these arms must not excite undue interest should you or any of your team fall into opposition hands; therefore, you will be armed with either the well known Walther PPK, which is. of course, very similar to our standard-issue Makarov—or should I say, vice-versa?”
There was a low chuckle from the group, who knew that the Soviet Makarov was a direct copy of the Walther PPK.
Majorov continued, “… or the Beretta Model 84 double action pistol, both firing the nine millimeter short cartridge.
All the weapons issued will appear used, but I assure you that each pistol has been dismantled and inspected and, when necessary renovated. Most of you will have already fired these weapons at one time or another, so I will not waste your time with gratuitous information about them.”
Majorov replaced the pistols on the table and picked up another pistol, unfamiliar to Helder.
“Now we come to the weapons to be carried by the shock teams, where we are unconcerned with weapons being identified. This, gentlemen, is the SIG-Sauer model P226 self-loading pistol, manufactured by the Swiss arms company, Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft, jointly with the West German firm ofJ.P. Sauer and Son. This pistol was developed by SIG for the competition for a new sidearm for the U.S. Armed Forces and Coast Guard. The Americans were too stupid to adopt it. It is, in my very well informed opinion, the finest automatic pistol available. The P226 fires the nine millimeter parabellum cartridge, loaded from a magazine containing fifteen rounds.” There was a murmur of approval from the audience.
Majorov returned the pistol to the table and picked up a short, boxy weapon in one hand and a thick black cylinder in the other.
“And now for the more interesting of your new weapons, gentlemen.” He began screwing the cylinder onto the short muzzle of the weapon.
“This is the Ingrain Model 10 submachine gun, also known as the Mac 10, of which I am sure you have heard. We have procured some two thousand of these superb weapons by especially devious means. This weapon has a number of advantages. Although amazingly compact, like, say, the Israeli Uzi, it fires a forty-five caliber cartridge, with all the resultant improvement in impact, from a thirty-round magazine at a rate of eleven hundred and forty-five rounds per minute. The cylinder, here, is not a conventional silencer, but a suppressor, which is designed to let the bullet reach its full velocity, thereby eliminating the usual thump from a silencer. All the opposition hears is the crack of the bullet becoming supersonic as it passes, which makes it impossible to tell from what position you are firing. I think you will agree that this is a distinct advantage in the sort of operation for which we are training.
This weapon is to be carried by teams operating in open countryside, where noise and muzzle flash would give away our positions, and Sergeant Petrov here.” he nodded toward the man who had followed him into the room, “will be demonstrating it later and instructing you in its use. I think you will like it.”
Majorov replaced the submachine gun and picked up another weapon, like nothing Helder had ever seen. There was a buzz of comment among the audience; apparently, no one else had seen one, either. It seemed to be a flat metal box, about three feet long, two inches wide at one end and six at the other. It would not have resembled a weapon at all had it not been for a trigger guard and pistol grip in the middle and a combination sight carrying handle on top. Majorov cradled the thing in his arms and began to speak.
“Now for the new weapon to be carried by teams operating in urban areas. In 1982, the American armed forces initiated something called the Close Assault Weapons System program, aimed at developing a new kind of combat shotgun. A number of weapons manufacturers expressed an interest in the project, and the West German firm of Heckler and Koch, whose work you all know well. developed a prototype, one of which, along with a complete set of drawings, ah, happened to come our way. For two years, now, a special team at Soviet State Ordnance has been developing and improving the idea, until we now have in limited production nothing less than a highly refined, highly reliable submachine shotgun.” There was something like a gasp from the audience as Majorov held up the weapon.
Majorov continued.
“We have also developed a range of highly effective ammunition, including a special antipersonnel buckshot, a CS gas cartridge, and a solid projectile that will defeat thirty millimeters (one and a quarter inches) of armor at a hundred and fifty meters.” Another gasp from the audience. Majorov picked up a thick clip and shoved it into the stock of the weapon, behind the pistol grip.
“It will fire, from a twenty-four round clip, either single shot or on full automatic at a rate of five hundred rounds per minute. At a range of forty meters, shot will spread to approximately nine hundred millimeters (three feet), so in one second the firer can place eighty pellets into an area no more than one meter square, and at that range, each pellet will have a residual energy approximately fifty percent greater than that of a 7.65 millimeter pistol round. We estimate further that, in a confined area, say a city street, six men with two clips each would decimate a company of conventional infantry in less than ten seconds.”
There was a moment’s silence, then the audience burst into applause, and the troops were on their feet.
While they were still applauding, Majorov nodded to the weapons sergeant, who went to a panel and flipped a switch. The blank wall behind Majorov slid upwards to reveal a well-lit, fifty-meter firing range. The applause abruptly stopped. Helder, who had been drawn to his feet by the spontaneous action of the others, sank back into his seat, his stomach twitching. The other men immediately followed suit. Forty meters down the range, a dozen human figures were slung from the ceiling by ropes under their arms. For a moment Helder had thought they were merely unconscious, but something about their attitudes of hanging told him they were dead, and he was immediately thankful for that.
“Please put on your earmuffs, gentlemen,” Major said, then as they did so, he wheeled, tucked the stock of the submachine shotgun under his arm, cocked it and, moving from left to right, emptied a twenty-four round clip into the corpses. The figures jerked violently, spraying blood and gore onto the floor, sides, and ceiling of the narrow range. When the clip was exhausted, Majorov ejected it from the weapon, replaced it, and repeated the firing, this time from right to left.
Helder tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t. The noise was incredible, even through the earmuffs; the bodies danced wildly, as if trying to elude the dense rain of shot.
When the second clip was exhausted, three of the corpses were without heads; others were missing limbs; two had been cut in half. For a very long moment nobody moved. Then, as Majorov turned to face them again, the group sluggishly removed their earmuffs.
“Gentlemen,” Majorov said quietly, “once the opposition has seen these new weapons used, they will fear you as they have never feared anything else in their lives.” HELDER was now working flat out at whatever he was being trained for. He was drilled daily in his legend by Mr. Jones, who was ingenious at tricking him into blowing cover; he trained with both the Ingram submachine gun and the submachine shotgun, as well as with the Walther PPK, which he now carried, unloaded, in a soft holster clipped inside his waistband in the small of his back. to get used to it; he spent two hours each day in the language lab, polishing his American mid-west accent; he jogged and ran wind sprints twice a day; and he endured a punishing two hour session each day with a squat, muscular Ukrainian, who taught a brand of unarmed combat that kept him permanently bruised and sore. He spent the evenings with Trina; they dined in one of Malibu’s half-dozen Western restaurants and watched the news and movies on the cable television. She was, for all intents, living with him, though she kept no personal belongings in his room.
He was at the point of believing that his operational naval career was over and that he was being trained purely for spying missions when Majorov turned up one day at the language lab and took him away in the golf can.
“How are things going?” Majorov asked, as they whirred along toward the waterfront.
“Very well indeed, sir.” Helder replied.
“They’re keeping me busy.”
“Good. good.” Majorov pulled the bill of his American style baseball cap down a bit to exclude the sunlight.
“Actually, you’ve had about all the training you’re going to have ashore. Mr. Jones tells me you’ve got the legend down pat, and your weapons and other training has gone very satisfactorily. Now, you’re going to sea again, in a manner of speaking.”
They passed without slowing through a gate manned by two men in sweatsuits and armed with Ingram Mark 10s and headed for the area covered by the water-filled roof that Helder had noticed on his first day at Malibu. The area was around a point of land from the marina, and Helder had never been able to catch sight of it, even when sailing the Finn dinghy. They descended below the level of the roof, and Majorov brought the cart to a halt. Helder followed him through a door set well back under an overhang.
As they passed through it, he caught his breath.
Rolling out ahead of him was about two hundred meters of submarine pens and workshops. There were three submarines in their berths, a Whiskey and two of the Romeo class, but Helder could see, as they walked briskly through the facility, two berths that would accommodate the gigantic Typhoon class, the largest subs in the Soviet fleet.
There were also a dozen or so mini submarines mostly of Type Two and Three, the mass-produced workhorses of the Soviet mini sub fleet, which were used for everything from seabed research to the carrying of troops. There were two Type Fours, as well, which were equipped with tracks for bottom crawling, and something odd, that looked like a truncated Type Four.
Helder was stunned. Even having been at Malibu as long as he had been, he had not had the slightest notion that the place was, in addition to a SPETSNAZ training canter, a submarine base. He looked out across the water to where the tidal lake met the Baltic Sea. It was obvious that whatever left or arrived here did so submerged.