Deep Cover

“The enemy attack will be simulated. Your wing headquarters will receive all the signals it would receive in the event of a real red alert. That’s Captain Ludlum’s field of operation.”

“I understand that,” Winslow said. “But the missile squadrons aren’t the only units that get activated under a red alert. The Pentagon goes on DefCon One—Defense Condition One—highest alert status, like when JFK was assassinated. The DefCon One signal alerts not only the ICBM wing but also the rest of the base. The SAC planes get a ‘Batter Up’ order to get them airborne so they won’t be caught on the ground—all that kind of thing. Is that going to happen here?”

“Obviously not. Airplanes have radios. We couldn’t very well have a wing of SAC bombers take to the air and then request confirmation from NORAD on the open airwaves which we can’t control. To do that we’d have to take over the whole of NORAD and we can’t possibly do anything like that.”

“But then what happens when the ICBMs go on red alert and the rest of the Air Base remains on normal status? It won’t make sense to anybody.”

“There won’t be any contact between the two groups. Pay attention now because I haven’t time to repeat myself. The essential mechanical and electronic preparations will have to be done tomorrow night under cover of darkness. Mrs. Conrad, it’s your job to see that the sentries who are assigned to guard duty at the key points both inside and outside the missile silos are members of our group. That applies to the twenty-four-hour period begi

“It’ll take some reshuffling of assignments,” Adele Conrad said, “but I suppose the ones who suddenly find themselves with a weekend off duty won’t complain. I’ll have to get together with the officers in charge of these assignments.”

“Never mind the details now. But Captain Ludlum’s people will be working in the open and the sentries who see them must be our own people. We can’t have any alarms. You’ll have to see that the members of Captain Ludlum’s teams are off duty, or assigned to places where Captain Ludlum needs them.”

“We’ll take care of it.” She might have been talking about the installation of a television set in a ranking officer’s bedroom.

Belsky said, “The key to everything is to seal off communications. We’ve got to be certain there’s no leakage in or out.”

“It ought to work,” Ludlum said. “We’ve had twenty years to work out the details, and Douglass here keeps us up to date on everything new they install by way of equipment.”

“Your plan is satisfactory, but there’s one vital thing it doesn’t take into account. We may get orders to abort from Moscow at any time—we’ve got to be prepared to react exactly as you would react if an actual countermand came down from the President.”

Ludlum said, “You’ve got to be above ground with your radio receiver, is that it?”

“Yes. So you’ve got to maintain one thread of contact with the outside—contact with me.”

“Well, we’re disco

Conrad said, “We’ll start printing right away. Sometime tomorrow morning be all right?”

“It’ll do.”

Belsky shifted his seat on the hard chair. “About perso

Ludlum said, “The easy way’s to act as if the Chinese are dumping enough megato

Nick Conrad stood up, looking at his watch and shooting his cuff. “Listen, I’d better get going—we’ve got to set up the codes and start printing.”

Nicole said, “Yes, let’s not keep the Kremlin waiting.”

Belsky had left his rented Ford in a pay-parking lot and torn up the ticket; he was driving a dark Dodge hardtop that belonged to one of Hathaway’s men. The car smelled of tobacco and there were big fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror. He drove up the Sabino Canyon road and made a left turn into a vague dirt track that ran back into the hills. On the tall weeds between the road’s ruts the headlights picked up fresh dark grease that had rubbed off the bottom of a recent vehicle.

The place had been a farm. It had been abandoned for several years; the windows were smashed, the shingles cracked, the barnyard overgrown.

When Belsky stopped the car he blinked his headlights on and off twice before he got out. Culver appeared in the barn door and waved. “Hi there, Mr. Beldon. Right on time.”

“Everything all right, Culver?” Belsky carried the transceiver in his left hand.

“Got everything you ordered. Come see for yourself.” Tim Culver had the quick restless eyes and the mouth-corner speech of an ex-convict. He backed up to make room in the doorway and when Belsky came inside Culver slid the big door shut and switched on a big multicell flashlight. The beam played over the ton-and-a-half truck. It had U.S. Air Force blue paint and a variety of stenciled white identification markings. The barn smelled of old hay and fresh paint, and the glass and chrome of the truck were stripped with masking tape; the truck was still aglitter with wetness. Near the back of the steel-enclosed bed there was a patch of Army olive-drab paint that hadn’t been covered yet.

“I just got a little left to spray,” Culver said. “I took care of the stencils up front first because that white stuff’s tricky; you got to dry it just right or it runs.”

“Looks good, Culver.”

Culver went back and got the spray canister and resumed work on the back of the truck. Its loading doors stood open; Belsky looked inside. The small steel tanks had been fitted carefully into soft-lined wooden frames to prevent their being jarred. Belsky made a quick count—twenty-four pressure tanks, each with valve and hose. They were smaller than aqualung tanks and looked vaguely like fire extinguishers.

Culver said, “I already took the plates off. You bring those Air Force plates?”

“In the trunk of my car.”

“Okay. I’ll put them on soon as I finish up here.”

“Take your time,” Belsky said. He looked at his watch in the reflected glow of Culver’s big flashlight.

Squares of brown corrugated cardboard had been taped over the insides of the rear-door windows to make it appear from outside as if the truck were loaded with cartons.

Belsky said, “Did you have any trouble?”

“Naw. I waited down at Sierra Vista and when the truck came out the Fort Huachuca gate I tailed it out toward the highway and went by it on that narrow stretch above Tombstone—dumped out the spikes, and when it blew a tire I handled them easy with that rifle of yours. That’s a sweet silencer.”

“What did you do with the bodies?”