Warren Murphy: The Sky is Falling

"We showed we could knock out all your missiles so you had to build new ones."

Zemyatin controlled an acknowledging nod. It did not shock him that the man looked so average. The most dangerous things in the world were the commonplace. The bodies around Moscow were proof enough. He did not have to see muscles.

"These new missiles have two orders that can be delivered. Go and no-go. That is exactly why your intelligence agency correctly called them 'raw buttons.' "

"So tell them no-go."

"Without burdening you with details, the deployment system across a nation larger than yours was necessarily cumbersome. We do not have some electronic command that maneuvers the missiles in series of calculated changeable firings. If we say 'no-go' it would take weeks to get everyone organized again, to get the orders out again. In effect, in this missile age they would have to be put down forever."

"I am not against that," said Remo.

"We have a designated firing time, soon to be upon us. If you kill me there is no way to put down those missiles. If you torture me, you will get a wrong command that will tell them not to listen to the right command if it should come next."

Remo noticed the electronics against the wall, the dishes yet to be cleared from the table, and the old bathrobe this man confidently wore while discussing the gravest matters of state. This was the one, he was sure, he was to look for. The one who made the deals.

"In brief, young American, it is either war or no war, the rawest of raw buttons. To tell them to stand down means virtually abolishing the system. And for that, I must have more proof than your showing off. I am sorry."

"So it is war."

"Not necessarily, " said Zemyatin. "We have time. I will not tell you how much. But we do have time."

"If there is a war, you are not going to survive it. And tell your friend over there not to bother with that blunderbuss he has stuck in his pants."

"Another death, American?"

"I don't keep score anymore," said Rerno. "If those missiles go, I will spend a lifetime in this mess you call a country evening things out. I want you to know that no chairman or commissar or king will live one night. I will make your country into desert, a body without a head, a dung heap among nations. I don't want conquest. To win Russia is to win nothing."

"For you. But for me, it is everything."

The bodyguard whom Remo knew wanted a chance with the gun suddenly turned to the electronics. Remo caught only vague words of the language, but he knew that something horrible had happened.

"American," said Zemyatin, "I now believe your government has been telling the truth about that weapon. Unfortunately."

Remo waited to hear what the Russian leader meant by 'unfortunately'."

"Your government may be stupid, but it is not completely so. The beam has been directed toward your northern pole with the largest arc yet, on a continuous scan parameter."

"Wonderful," said Remo. What was he talking about?

"In brief, the ozone shield is being punctured continuously above the polar ice cap."

Remo eyed the Russian suspiciously. So what? he thought.

"Terrible," he said.

"Yes," said Zemyatin. "Unless that machine is stopped, the entire polar ice cap will be turned to water. So large is the polar ice cap that the oceans will rise many, many feet. Low-lying areas of the earth will be flooded, and that means most of Europe and America. Civilization as we know it will be doomed."

"That machine can really get you so many ways," said Remo. "What is the source?"

"Your America. The beam has been on long enough now for us to get a fix on it. Your northeast corridor."

"Good. If you can get a fix on it, we must know exactly. Anything in that electronic junk on the wall that can get an American phone number?"

"Yes," said Zemyatin. And Remo gave Smith's secret number to the Russians for dialing.

While the bodyguard was dialing, Zemyatin asked, "Are you part of the CIA?"

"No. Internal, mostly."

"Secret police?"

"Not really. We don't want to control anything. We just want to keep the country from going under."

"We all say that," said Zemyatin.

"But we mean it," said Remo.

"Of course," said the Great One of the Russian Revolution.

Smith's voice came over the transatlantic line surprisingly clearly.

"This line is being eavesdropped on, Remo," Smith said. There were gadgets in his office, Remo knew, that could tell that, but he had never heard Smith say that before.

"I would be surprised if it weren't, Smitty. This is a KGB line."

"Doesn't matter. We have located the beam. You will not believe what it is doing!"

"Continuous parameter scan on the polar ice cap. Low-lying areas are going to be flooded," said Remo.

"Right," said Smith, wondering if Remo had suddenly learned to deal with technology.

"The source is located just outside of Boston on their high-tech Route 128."

"Then you can put it off now, and we can show their leader. I found him. His name is Zemyatin, Alexei. He has a stupid bodyguard."

"Can't do that. Not that simple. There are two of those beams. One of them, we've been told, is called the doughnut. In its center, perhaps two hundred square feet, everything will be all right. Outside of that center, in a ring two hundred miles wide, everything will be exposed to the unfiltered rays of the sun. Washington, New York. Everything. It will be a disaster of enormous proportions."

"Ask him how he knows," said Zemyatin.

".How do you know?" asked Remo.

"That is the key, Remo. She has told us about it. If the government takes one step toward her machines, the doughnut goes off. Remo, she knows you and she wants you. That woman you were with is behind all this."

"Dr. Kathleen O'Donnell?" asked Zemyatin. Remo nodded. He didn't have to ask Smith.

"She wants you. She will settle for no one else. I am glad you called."

"You mean she would destroy a world just to get another date or something?" Remo asked.

He saw Zemyatin signal his bodyguard. Another phone was produced. Zemyatin spoke hurriedly. He was getting that psychological profile he had ridiculed before. He presented the facts to the nervous KGB officer in charge of the British desk.

The answer was horrifying.

"That is precisely what she would do," came back the voice from the other end of the phone. "One death or a million deaths means nothing to her. She might even enjoy them."

"Tell your commander, American, we are coming. You and me," said Zemyatin.

On the way out of the apartment, Remo slipped the pistol from the bodyguard's belt and crumbled it in his hands.

"It wouldn't have worked, sweetheart," he said to the old warrior clutching at space.

He also warned Zemyatin to give the command to stand down the new raw-button missiles, because Remo did not trust planes.

"I mean, what if something happens to you?"

"I am sure that with your awesome protection, American, nothing will. When I see the beam destroyed, then I will tell them to stand down. Trust is too rich a meal for an old man who has supped on the chicanery of international politics. Not at my age. Not now."

"I don't care. You want us all to go up in a nuclear cloud if you have a heart attack? Fine with me. I think all you Russians are crazy."

Alexei Zemyatin shrugged. It was not his country that had allowed something like the fluorocarbon beam to be produced.

Chapter 18

It was said of those who fought closely with the Great One that they began to think like him. So, too, was it with General Ivanovich.

Traditionally, the North Koreans had been dismissed as gloating barbarians, too ruthless and crude and incompetent to even consider using a joint exercise.

This time, their intelligence chief, Sayak Cang, was not humored and dismissed; this time, General Ivanovich stepped in, for even as Zemyatin and the American monster were boarding the plane for the flight to America, Ivanovich knew he had taken charge. He was not seeking how to appear well no matter what happened. He was looking to make this dangerous world work in Russia's favor. That was the secret of Zemyatin's brilliance. And the Great One knew Ivanovich understood that now.