James Barrington - Overkill

‘The fact that the weapon only had defensive potential and so would only be used to kill the Russian hordes if those same Russian hordes first swept into Europe riding main battle tanks was deemed to be irrelevant. The Americans didn’t deploy the weapon, although they did stockpile them in America to be used in the event of hostilities over here.’

‘And the Russians? Did they build any?’

Hillsworth nodded. ‘Of course they did. In the nineteen eighties they announced that they had built and tested neutron weapons. What the state of play is now I have no idea, but I strongly suspect that somewhere in Russia some new kind of neutron bomb has been tested in the fairly recent past.’

‘Why is that, Professor?’ Richter asked, sitting forward slightly in the chair.

‘Because you’re here, sitting in my chair drinking my coffee and eating my biscuits and telling me a pack of lies about American designs for a super-bomb.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Richter said.

The professor smiled. ‘I’m not an idiot, Mr Richter. I know about Anglo-American co-operation in defence projects – apart from anything else I’m a member of one of the Steering Committees – and if our cousins across the sea were developing a new weapon I promise you I would know about it. I don’t, so therefore they’re not, but the Russians probably are. QED.’

‘Ah,’ Richter said, and drank the rest of his coffee. He reflected that you don’t get to become a professor at the age of thirty-two, which Hillsworth had achieved, without being a pretty sharp cookie, but Richter somehow hadn’t expected quite this degree of sharpness. ‘Without wishing to confirm or deny—’ Richter started in his best Civil Service voice, but Hillsworth interrupted.

‘Let me finish it for you,’ Hillsworth said. ‘I’ve heard it often enough. In brief, you are not prepared to confirm the source of your information, nor the quality of that information, nor even, if pushed, the existence of that information. Right?’ Richter nodded. ‘In short, you’ve heard a story, or seen some kind of report, and you want an independent opinion as to its veracity?’

‘Yes.’

Hillsworth shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t say that at the beginning instead of going all round the houses and sitting through a rather boring lecture on basic nuclear weapon theory. I suppose you enjoy all the cloak and dagger aspects of it.’

Richter nodded again, somewhat sheepishly. ‘We like to keep in practice, Professor,’ he said. ‘OK, having cleared the air, is it possible that the Russians have managed to develop a strategic neutron bomb?’

‘Anything’s possible, I suppose,’ Hillsworth said. ‘But there’s one very obvious problem if they have developed such a weapon and decide to re-arm with it.’

‘Yes,’ Richter prompted. ‘What’s that?’

‘Well, if they have, the Russians would obviously place themselves at a very severe disadvantage in any future nuclear exchange. But,’ Hillsworth added, ‘there are three other aspects about this that might be relevant to your enquiry. First, does the name Sam Cohen mean anything to you? Second, what do you know about America buying Russian weapons-grade plutonium? And have you ever heard of red mercury?’

Hammersmith, London

Richter reached Hammersmith just after six thirty, parked the Escort in the Transport Pool’s underground garage, checked in with the Duty Officer, then went straight up to Simpson’s office. Simpson was sitting at his desk, studying a file, which he snapped shut when Richter walked in.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

Richter sat down heavily in the chair in front of the desk. ‘It’s like this,’ he said, and started to explain what the professor had told him.

Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye Headquarters, the ‘Aquarium’, Khodinka Airfield, Moscow

Since the effective end of the Cold War, the number of Russian surveillance satellites which has been launched has dropped considerably, but there are still several vehicles, all operated by the Directorate of Cosmic Intelligence of the GRU, established in polar orbits which do little but watch the American landmass. Like the early American Big Bird satellites and the current KH–11 and KH–12 Keyhole vehicles, the Russian platforms are equipped with sophisticated optical devices and an assortment of other detectors working in the nonvisible electromagnetic spectrum, and are primarily designed to detect any military activity which might be considered a threat to Russia.

The kind of activity which falls into this category includes precisely the actions taken by the American military machine when the DEFCON state is increased, and five hours after America went to DEFCON FOUR the first satellite pictures arrived at the Aquarium.

Thirty minutes after that, the GRU duty commanding officer was en route to the Kremlin with a sheaf of pictures and a hastily prepared intelligence appraisal.

Stepney, London

Richter left Hammersmith an hour and a quarter later, after the evening meeting, told the duty driver that he was taking the Escort, and drove back to his apartment. Richter’s London home was in an undistinguished building, lurking in the warren of streets that lay north of Commercial Road, which had originally been a grand town house for some unknown Victorian merchant. Richter had taken a lease on one of the two top-floor apartments shortly after he had started working for FOE. It was small, anonymous, fairly central, but above all reasonably cheap, at least by London standards, all of which seemed to Richter to be pretty good reasons for staying there.

In the flat, he pulled off his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair, kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the couch. He needed time to think, time to try to tie some of the loose ends together. Just after eleven thirty the telephone rang and Richter stumbled off the couch and went into the hall to answer it. The FOE duty driver wanted to collect the Escort, unless Richter still needed it.

‘No,’ Richter said. ‘Help yourself. It’s parked right outside my building.’

As he was on his feet, and getting hungry, Richter walked into the kitchenette, opened the freezer door and surveyed the contents with a marked lack of enthusiasm. He selected a frozen lasagne, read the instructions, put it in the microwave and returned to the living room.

The ‘ping’ of the microwave timer came several minutes later, and was followed almost immediately by a muffled but loud and echoing thump that Richter couldn’t identify. What he knew was that the noise hadn’t come from inside the apartment.

He peered out of the windows, but could see nothing unusual, so he walked down the hall to the windows which overlooked the main road. The first thing he saw was two men running across the road, towards his building, and a few seconds later he heard the distant wail of a siren, getting closer. Then he looked down at the street directly below him. It was only then, when he saw the blackened, twisted pile of metal that had once been the Motor Pool’s Escort that he knew just how far wrong things had gone.

Saturday

Stepney, London

Richter took another brief glance downwards at the ruins of the car, turned away and walked back into his apartment. He closed and bolted the door on the inside, then walked through into his bedroom. His face was set and icy calm, and he moved with swift and deliberate purpose.

He peeled off his grey trousers and tossed them on the bed. Then he opened the wardrobe door and pulled out a pair of blue jeans, a black leather motorcycle jacket, a pair of black trainers, a dark blue polo-neck sweater and a small grey haversack. He put on the jeans, fastening the waist with a broad leather belt, pulled on the sweater and laced up the trainers. Then he reached up to the top of the wardrobe and pulled down a dark red motorcycle helmet and a pair of leather gloves, which he placed on the bed.