Shattered Bone (37 page)

McCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, KANSAS

M
OROZOV LOOKED AT HIS WATCH
. T
WELVE MINUTES TO GO
. T
HEY WERE
running late. He looked across to Richard Ammon who was still staring in wonder at the B-1s. He could tell from the look on his face that Ammon was excited at the prospect of flying the Bone. That was good. That was very important. Perhaps they had chosen the right man after all.

Morozov was parked on the side of a road that ran around the north end of the runway. From here he had a good view of the entire alert area. He studied the ten-foot electric fence that surrounded the B-1 parking ramp. He could see the small disks of motion detectors that ran parallel to the fence. He looked up at the guard towers, then down at the armored security vehicles that circled the parked B-1s. There must have been at least a hundred security policemen, all of them armed with machine guns. He squinted and peered at the white cement. Yes, there they were. He could see them. The red lines that depicted the Zone.

He looked at his watch once again, then slipped their car into gear. It was time to go.

He turned around and headed for the alert facility. Four minutes later, he and Ammon pulled into the parking lot that was just outside the facility gate. From there, they did one final scope of the fence.

“Everything looks good,” Morozov observed.

“Yeah, looks good to me. You go first,” Ammon suggested.

They climbed out of the car and started walking toward the high fence, Morozov leading the way, carrying a small black duffel bag under his arm. Ahead of them were two huge barbed wire fences, one inside the other. Ten feet separated the two fences. Each fence had only one gate, which was a steel revolving door. Two armed security policemen, each of them with a German shepherd, watched as the two men approached.

The two fences were designed as a trap. Both Ammon and Morozov would have to show their identification before they would be allowed through the first gate. There they would be confined between the two fences. In no-man's-land.

Once inside no-man's-land, they would be challenged once again. But this time not only would they have to show their ID, but they would also have to give the proper code word. The code words were classified TOP SECRET and they could change as frequently as every few hours. If either Ammon or Morozov didn't give the proper code, they would be thrown to the ground and arrested.

It was the code procedures that had Morozov the most worried.

The problem was in the master code books. New code books were issued in a completely random manner. A code book might be used for several weeks or several hours, so Morozov could never be completely sure that he had the most recent edition. Morozov's code book was only fifty-six hours old, but it could very well be that a new edition had already been issued. Maybe even two. Maybe even three. There was no way to know. But he soon would find out.

As they walked toward the gate, Morozov checked his watch once again. Eight minutes to go. They would have to hurry, for they couldn't be even a second late. He gave Ammon a gentle nod and then picked up his pace just a little. When they were still twenty feet from the fence, one of the guards held out his hand and yelled, “Halt!”

GULF OF MEXICO

The Chernova Ukraina continued to cruise effortlessly through the four-foot troughs. Inside her Command Center, the captain was staring at the radar screen. An unidentified aircraft was approaching. It looked to be a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion. The turboprop aircraft was approaching from the east at 320 knots and heading directly for the Chernova. No doubt, the P-3 had been sent to check them out. As the Orion flew toward her target, she would have on all of her “ears,” or radio signal detectors, so that she could hear what the Chernova was up to.

That was very bad. If the Chernova tried to transmit her encoded message on the ULFT, the Orion would certainly detect it. Then the Americans would know that it was the Chernova that had sent out the message.

And the captain of the Chernova Ukraina had been given very specific orders. Take any means necessary to avoid being detected as the source of the ULFT transmission.

But the Orion couldn't home in on their transmissions until she got to within two hundred miles of the Chernova.

The captain looked at his watch once again. Six minutes, thirty seconds to go.

“Is the message ready to send?” he asked his communications officer sharply.

“Yes, sir. We are awaiting your word,” he replied.

“How long will it take to broadcast the entire message?”

“Three minutes and eighteen seconds, sir. The ULFT is very slow. It can only transmit one character every seven seconds and—”

“I know the limitations of the ULFT,” the Captain snapped. He turned and looked at the radar screen once again. The Orion had picked up her speed just slightly and was now approaching at 340 knots. She was charting a course that would bring her to within seven miles of the Chernova's starboard bow.

“At this speed, how long until she is within homing range?” the captain asked.

The radar operator pushed two buttons next to his screen. The radar's computers did the calculations within a fraction of a second.

“Six minutes, twenty-two seconds, sir.”

The Captain scowled as he did the math in his head. Six minutes until he was suppose to send the message. A little over three minutes to send it. That was nine minutes. The P-3 would now be within range in six minutes and twenty seconds.

It wasn't going to work. That would leave the Orion with almost three minutes to home in on their transmitter. That was about sixty seconds too long.

The Captain considered his options for only a moment before he made up his mind.

“Stand by to broadcast message. Commence broadcast in ... ,” he paused to look at his watch, “three minutes. That will ensure the message broadcast is complete before the Americans get into homing range.”

The Chern ova' s communications officer glanced at the Captain for just a moment. He was one of the few men on board that had been authorized to read the orders that had sent them here to the Gulf of Mexico. He understood the importance of not being identified as the senders of the ULFT transmission.

But he also understood something else. Their mission was very urgent. And the timing was critical. Absolutely critical. They were to begin their transmission at a very specific time. Not a second early. Not a second late.

The communications officer considered arguing this point to the captain. Then he changed his mind. The captain knew what he was doing. He would trust him to do the right thing.

McCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, KANSAS

Ammon and Morozov stopped in their tracks. The guard closest to them swung his M-16 down from his shoulder.

“Approach the gate one at a time.”

Morozov looked at Ammon, then turned and walked up to the gate. He stood just outside the revolving steel door. The guard spoke to him through tiny slots in the steel.

“May I see your identification please, sir?”

Morozov reached into the breast pocket of his flight suit and extracted his military ID and his line badge and slipped them through a slit in the door.

The guard reached through and picked up the cards. He began to study them as Morozov looked at his watch. Six minutes.

“Sir, will you step back as we rotate the gate?” the guard asked. Morozov stepped back two paces and the gate began to revolve. He judged the timing so that he could walk through the swinging arms. As he passed through the gate, the first guard returned him his ID.

“Sir, please proceed to the next gate.” Morozov stepped by the first guard, whose German shepherd sniffed and strained at his harness as Morozov passed by.

Morozov walked up to the second gate. Again the guard spoke to him from a slit in the door.

“ID,” he said curtly.

Morozov passed him the two pieces of identification. He looked back at Richard Ammon, who was still standing outside the first gate. He glanced at his watch, trying to make his preoccupation with time as unnoticeable as possible. Five minutes, twenty seconds.

“Bring the other one in,” the second guard yelled. The first guard motioned for Richard Ammon to step forward. Ammon proceeded on up to the gate and quickly passed his identification through the slit to the guard.

Within a minute he was standing next to Morozov, trapped between the two fences. He passed his ID to the second guard, who studied them as carefully as he had Morozov's.

When he appeared to be satisfied with the ID, he motioned for Morozov to step forward. On the side of the gate was a simple keyboard with a small computer screen. Morozov would have to type the code word into the computer before he could pass through the gate.

“Sir, are you ready to type in the code word?” the second guard asked through the fence. Morozov nodded in reply.

“Type in the code word then, sir. Time now is 1409 Zulu. The code will change again in fifty-one minutes.”

Morozov reached out and began to type in the code.

GULF OF MEXICO

“Commence broadcasting,” said the Chernova's Captain. His communications officer nodded, then turned back to his console. He punched a series of buttons on his keyboard and the ULFT began to transmit. The communications officer checked his watch and noted the time of transmission into the ship's log.

As the transmission began, long radio waves in the ultra low frequency began to spread out from the enormous antenna that trailed from the Ukrainian cruiser. The radio signals extended out in all directions. They spread across the ocean waves until they hit landfall, then continued to roll across the terrain. It was only a few seconds until they had reached the wheat fields of southern Kansas.

McCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, KANSAS

The former Soviet Union was never shy about their intention to take advantage of what they perceived as one of the United States' key weaknesses; their unregulated environment in matters of defense. This enabled the USSR to commit various acts of sabotage and subversion, many times without the Americans even knowing what had been done.

One example of this was the McConnell Air Force Base new fuel storage facility. Millions of gallons of JP-8 jet fuel were stored in eight huge tanks sitting on a small hill at the north end of the runway. The tanks were just three hundred yards from the B-1 alert parking area. Huge pressurized underground fuel lines carried the JP-8 to the fuel pits where hoses could be attached to the B-1s. This made refueling the thirsty aircraft very easy and efficient. It also made the transfer of the fuel much more secure.

At least that was the theory. But there were a few things that the Air Force didn't know. For example, they didn't know that one of the civilian contractors who helped to build the storage facility was a paid Soviet informer, controlled by a Ukrainian officer from the KGB. One day, just as the construction project was being completed, the contractor walked by one of the tanks and dropped in what looked to be a large black lunch box. The box immediately sank to the bottom of the tank where its presence was never detected.

Now, as the ultra-low-frequency radio transmissions rolled across the McConnell flight line, the black box suddenly came to life. A tiny computer inside the watertight box began to decode the message. When the complete message had been received, it would be verified against the black box's computer files. If it confirmed to be valid, the black box would go into a countdown.Ten seconds later it would explode.

Morozov finished typing in the code. He looked at the screen on the side of the fence. He studied the code word for just a moment to check his spelling. There was a policy of zero tolerance for spelling errors. It was the same thing as having the wrong code. When Morozov was satisfied, he reached up and pushed the “send” button.

A small screen on the other side of the gate immediately illuminated the code word that Morozov had typed in. The guard read his screen then looked over at Morozov. Morozov was looking around, trying to appear bored by the whole affair, scratching at his head. The guard glanced at the screen once again and then said. “Sir, will you stand back while I rotate the fence?”

That was it. Morozov was in. The code word was right.

Morozov stepped back and the door began to slowly rotate. Again he timed it so that he could pass through the swinging arms of the gate. After passing through the gate, Morozov turned around to look at Richard. Ammon was watching Morozov with a slight smile on his face. So Morozov's people had gotten the right code word. Ammon was alrnost surprised.

“Sir, will you step up and type in the code?” The guard was now looking at Richard Ammon. Ammon walked over to the keyboard and began to type. Morozov looked down at his watch. Two minutes, ten seconds. They were back on time.

Ammon finished typing. He, too, stepped back and looked up at the screen to check his spelling before he sent it to the guard. He reviewed the code word carefully. Everything was right. He reached up to hit the send button.

With a sudden burst of heat and light, an enormous explosion rocked the air, knocking them all to the ground. Even from three hundred yards, the heat and shock wave blew them over, searing their skin and burning their eyes. Morozov looked up to see a huge rolling ball of fire climb into the sky. Long arms of darting flames seemed to reach up and push the fireball skyward. Black smoke billowed up from underneath the rolling inferno. A rush of air was sucked inward to feed the hungry flames.

Three million pounds of fuel was gushing from a ruptured fuel tank. It streamed from the bent and crumpled metal like water from a high-pressure hose. Most of the fuel ignited immediately, sending waves of fire in every direction. But some of the fuel shot out from the base of the tank with such pressure and speed that it gushed underneath the flame, sending it spouting all over the hill before it had a chance to ignite.

A burning river of fuel began to stream down the side of the hill toward the B-1 parking area.