Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

The Captain he relieved looked at Pieter’s sallow, worn face with appraisal. “Your leave must have been very successful, major.”

Pieter smiled weakly and mumbled, “Yes, I suppose it was.”

The Captain gave Pieter a strange look, but the reply seemed to quell the officer’s interest. Satisfied, the man left. Pieter sat down and tried to work his way through the paperwork that had accumulated on his leave. There was no sense to it. The numbers and words danced around the outside of his comprehension, making his headache worse. He just made it to the bathroom in time to vomit in the sink. There were specks of blood in it. Pieter did not even bother with surgical tubing. He just plunged the needle of the hypodermic into the vein of his arm. The initial rush was short-lived, but it did take the edge off. The clock advanced with excruciating slowness towards 20:00.

At ten minutes to the hour, Pieter grabbed his officer’s cap and left his desk.

“My men and I have orders to remove some of the warhead triggers and thermal battery units for testing by Moscow,” he told the Duty Sergeant. “We will also be putting in replacement components tonight.”

The duty Sergeant looked puzzled.

Pieter frowned. “I’m telling you this because it is going to be an all-night job. If anybody calls, tell them my team and I are doing routine maintenance on a few of the warheads in the holding area. If it can’t wait until morning, send them out there to find me.”

The Sergeant, a new conscript not long in the service, did not know such an occurrence was so uncommon.

Pieter met the others at the storage depot’s front gate. Twelve MAZ-7310 Launcher Transports sat with their deadly payloads within the double layer chain-link fence that surrounded the compound. An equal number of ZIL-157 6x6 supply trucks were also visible. Four single-man guard towers were positioned at each corner of the compound. Until a few weeks ago, the missiles had sat with their nuclear warhead packages in storage, but with the current internal terrorist threats and Islamic militant action on the rise, the base Commander deemed it safer to have the missiles armed and mobile on a full-time basis. Pieter silently cursed Sturmovic for his foresight. It was going to make the job that much harder.

Because the missiles were nuclear equipped, the enclosure was guarded around the clock by soldiers of a GRU detachment. Despite the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye or Main Intelligence Directorate’s presence, Pieter, Dimitri and Sasha, all rocket forces officers trained in the installation and maintenance of the missiles and their payloads, were cleared for the area. Getting in was not the problem; getting the devices out could be.

Pieter presented the guard with admittance papers that he had typed up at his desk. “We are here to inspect missile units three, seven and ten.”

The guard, a GRU Lieutenant, raised his eyebrows. The hour and orders were unusual. “We were not notified on the duty sheet.”

Pieter had rehearsed his answer. “They failed to arm during the last test drill. The Commander feels that, due to the present situation, they should be diagnosed and repaired. Just in case, of course.” Pieter gave the guard a knowing smile. The guard waved the men and their UAZ jeep through. Pieter drove the jeep over to unit three.

The missile sat on the back of its Mobile Launcher in the transport position down in its tray, a welded pipe half-cage to protect the underside of its nose cone in transit. To allow easy access, the hatch to the nuclear payload bay was on the topside of the cone. A narrow foot way was welded to one side of the transport tray. Once the access hatch was open, the rest of the job of removal was quite simple. The Russian edict for most things mechanical was to make it durable and make it simple, no matter how dangerous the payload. The payload unit was a half-meter long cylinder of stainless steel, ten centimeters wide, nestled in a welded, stainless cradle. Pieter reached down and caressed the face of the unit. The cylinder was slightly warm to the touch. It had always amazed him that an object as small as this could harbor such raw destructive power.

A relative low-yield weapon, only five kilotons, both the trigger and the nuclear payload were housed in the warhead cylinder. The warhead was linked by a single computer cable to the Inertial Navigation System. This, in turn, was linked to an impact-triggered detonator. A mobile chain hoist equipped with a special jaw clamped to the sides of the carry tray supplied the lifting force needed to pull the one hundred and fifty kilo warhead from its casing. Once out, it was a simple but physically demanding job to manhandle the unit to the back of the specially modified UAZ jeep.

It took an hour for each unit. All three of the men were drenched in sweat, part from exertion, part from their need for another injection. The extra stress made their need a steady beat in the backs of their heads. The units were packed in special transport cases that, with the help of two bottles of good vodka, Pieter had acquired earlier that day from stores. The heavy-duty, foam-filled nylon carry crates were clearly marked with the international symbol for radiation and their Mobile Rocket Forces unit number. Pieter had forged the documents covering the transfer of the warheads to the storage and testing building. The guard, as before, gave the papers only a cursory glance. Anything was possible if you had the right papers. There was not a government door in the world that could remain closed to you. Pieter had made sure his papers would pass. The guard had no reason to suspect that the Major sitting in the UAZ before him was committing an act of state treason.

Seconds later, Pieter was amazed to find himself not under arrest, but clear of the compound. For the first time, he dared to hope that maybe it could be brought off. The sooner the better; he could feel the edges of his brain gnawed on by the habit. The last shot had packed less of a punch than he had hoped. The radiation symbols were hidden by quick application of a gun-tape patch. Time was running out.

Pieter parked the UAZ in the motor pool beside one of the ZIL 8x8 heavy trucks. The heavier transports were equipped with a winch mounted beside the tailgate. Sasha opened the back of the truck and the three warhead crates were wrestled from the jeep and winched, one by one, into its covered rear deck. Pieter produced a set of travel papers he had also forged earlier and checked them over. Dimitri tried to get the diesel engine of the truck warmed up and started. The Polish-built truck chose to be difficult. Pieter winced at every wheeze and cough of the cold engine as Dimitri pumped the gas pedal and thumbed the start button. With a dull rumble and a belch of black smoke, he managed to convince the metal bitch to start. Sasha and Pieter climbed into the cab. Dimitri drove the heavy truck out of the motor pool straight to the main gate.

Once again, the forged papers passed scrutiny and the barrier was drawn out of the way. Dimitri gunned the engine and the truck bounced and lurched off into the darkness, down the road to Batumi.

The guard they had just passed watched the small taillights fade in the distance and shook his head. Only in the Soviet army would men be sent off in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere to get supplies for a Commander’s party. He moved back inside to the relative warmth of the flimsy, wooden guard shack. Damn the Commander’s black heart, if the nights were not getting colder earlier this year.

The World War Two vintage MBT moved slowly through the oily waste-strewn waters of Batumi’s harbor. The boat, stripped of its original armament of torpedo tubes and fifty caliber machine guns, was now rigged for speed. Powered by twin turbo-charged marine diesels, each capable of generating four hundred and fifty horsepower. She was the ultimate runner. Whether it was drugs or guns, all that mattered was the money.