Target, p.36
Target, page 36
“There’s been a request made to the Agency … one that I fear is improper.”
“Go on.”
“We’ve been asked to investigate the tax affairs of the Secretary of State.”
Surprise flared in Fowler’s face. Very quickly he controlled it.
“Who?”
“Mr. Flood.”
Fowler snorted, a disbelieving sound. “I would have thought he was in enough shit as it was,” he said, almost to himself.
“It would be very embarrassing for the Agency if Mr. Flood discovered how you came to learn of the request,” said Jones. He paused, just sufficiently. “As embarrassing as if your awareness of the African operation were to become public knowledge.”
The President looked up sharply, alert for any threat. The Deputy Director gazed back, innocently.
“No fear of my not showing discretion,” promised Fowler. “And you were quite right to bring it to my attention. It is improper — damned improper.”
“I’ve not taken any action, of course,” said Jones.
“Of course not,” agreed the President.
33
For the first time Gerda had remained in his room throughout the night, clinging to him. They had slept very little, just occasionally lapsing off into a doze; he’d moved to make love to her when they had first got into bed, but she had refused him.
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m very frightened, Michael.”
He had tried to find something to say but, when nothing came, he pulled her even closer to him.
They breakfasted in the cafeteria, nodding to the technicians and scientists whom they had come to recognize, but talking little between themselves. Gerda ate nothing.
“Be careful,” he said.
“I’ll try.”
“Promise.”
She looked up from her coffee, holding his eyes. “I won’t get caught.”
He began to smile, then remembered her concern at being made to disclose everything if they were detained. “I didn’t mean that,” he said.
“I know you didn’t,” she said. “I did.”
They were approaching the door to the launch room when they encountered Dr. Muller. He had a worried, distracted look about him, and it was not until they were very close that he recognized them at all. Bohler thought that for the first time he looked like an old man.
“What’s the matter?” asked the American.
The Director shrugged, appearing unsure whether to tell them. Then he said, “The Libyans are insisting upon increasing the security, now that the launch is so near. I’ve protested to Bonn and been told to allow them the facilities they want.…”
He stared at Bohler, watery-eyed. “If this weren’t so important to me I would consider resigning,” he said.
“A successful launch would strengthen your position,” said Bohler, easily. “Why not wait until then before making any serious protest.”
Muller nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.”
They used the Director’s card for entry into the secured area, and entered the elevator silently. As Muller reached out for the indicator button, Gerda said, “I thought I might look at the silo area.”
Locked in his own thoughts, Muller made an absentminded movement and pressed the selector for the first stage. It was a very short drop and Gerda showed just the slightest hesitation when the doors hissed open and the corridor appeared before them.
“I’ll see you in a moment,” she said to Bohler.
“Yes.”
At the corridor edge she paused again and the automatic doors started to close, so that she had to push out to make them retract again.
“In a moment,” she repeated, then turned and started walking towards the silo.
Pressed back, the doors remained open for several seconds and Bohler stared after her. She was walking slowly but resolutely; she must have known the elevator was still there, but she didn’t look back. Impatiently Muller pressed the “closed” button and the elevator plunged deeper. Bohler stood respectfully aside for the Director to precede him into the control room. As soon as he entered, he realized the cause of Muller’s distress. At the back of the room, not interfering with any of the work but very obvious by their presence were two uniformed officers; the resentment was discernible in the chamber. Hannah Bloor turned at their entry, her face mirroring the general irritation. She ignored Bohler, looking at Dr. Muller.
“Well?” she said.
“They say they must remain.”
Bohler realized that Bonn’s decision had only just been made, and that Muller had left the room to complain to Germany and encountered them in the corridor on his return.
“This is like another time, when the military imagined they could control everything,” said the woman, bitterly.
“I don’t need reminding,” said Muller. “I was there.”
At last she looked to the American, smiling automatically. “Where’s Dr. Lintz?”
“She thought she’d look at the silo area,” said Bohler. They had planned a reversal of the previous day’s roles: she would make the sabotage attempt while he made himself conspicuous in the control room, talking and asking questions that would distract any concentrated attention from the television screen. Almost immediately, Bohler recognized the difficulty. Prevented from following what was happening in the room because of their lack of German, the Arabs were staring fixedly at the television screen: worse still, an operator had been seated directly before the screen, beneath which another set of indicators recording the final hours of fuel loading and pressure had been activated.
“She’ll find quite a crowd,” said the woman.
As she spoke, Bohler looked up at the monitor and saw the blur as Gerda emerged from the corridor onto one of the gantry stepways. But his concentration was not immediately on her; looking properly for the first time he saw soldiers at every level. There must have been at least six of them, in addition to the technicians carrying out the final inspection. With a numbing, empty feeling of despair, Bohler knew that what Gerda intended to do was impossible.
“It’s monstrous,” protested Muller, for his own benefit. “How can people be expected to work with such interference.”
There was only one fixed camera trained upon the silo, so that it was not possible to see what everyone was actually doing within the launch area. Figures kept entering the picture and then leaving it again, like actors performing silently on a stage. Bohler gazed unblinking at the diminutive figure of Gerda, watching her look around the silo and guessing her thoughts at seeing the increased number of guards. He had expected her to make a token gesture, perhaps involve herself in a brief talk with some of the on-site technicians and then withdraw, accepting the impracticability of any interference. There were some technicians nearby and for a moment she did engage in conversation with them but then, instead of turning back into the corridor as he had anticipated, she began walking towards the gantry link that would take her to the rocket’s second-stage level, into which the liquid fuel was still being loaded, and he realized, horrified, that she intended to attempt to go through with it. She disappeared, obscured from the camera lens by the bulk of the rocket itself and when she next appeared she was halfway up the catwalk. Above her, beyond the second-stage landing at a mid-level console assembly was another group of technicians. By their side were two soldiers. At the very top, near the satellite housing were two more uniformed Libyans, looking down on everything.
Bohler became aware that both the Director and Hannah were watching the monitor and desperately forced himself to begin talking, to fulfill his part of the plan. As he spoke, he moved about, trying to insinuate himself between the two officers at the back of the room and the television screen, conscious as he did so that it was ridiculous. Every time he remained in their way for more than a few seconds, they moved slightly and without protest either right or left, so they could see again. Muller and the Project Director responded to him, looking away from the screen, and involving themselves in conversation about entry windows into the atmosphere, weather forecasts which might impede any launch and checks subsequent to that which had discovered the electrical fault in the command radio the previous day. Like an alcoholic trying to prevent himself going towards an open bottle on a convenient table, Bohler pulled his eyes away from the television, forcing his concentration on what Muller and Hannah Bloor were saying so that his questions did not show the anxiety with which he was gripped.
It was the operator who had been placed before the screen who shouted the alarm, bringing them all back to the television. The sentries at the very top of the silo were obviously shouting, gesturing to those beneath them, and Gerda suddenly broke from the concealment of the rocket, near the spot where the fuel line snaked in. The technicians were about thirty feet above her, at the mid-level assembly. As he watched, his body froze, Bohler saw them turn and stare down. He thought one may have shouted, but it was difficult to be sure. The other soldiers were hurrying from the lower levels and, at the speed they were moving, Bohler could imagine how the sound of their boots against metal would have been very loud within the silo. Gerda was trapped between the ascending soldiers and the scientists above her. Her arm thrust out in some indefinable movement and then she began clambering up the tiny ladder towards them. Later Bohler was to accept that even committing suicide, Gerda had tried to make the explanation easy for him. Halfway up, she appeared to stumble, then miss her footing completely. Her arms came up, nearly too much a motion of panic, and she seemed to grab for the support rail and miss.
“Oh God, no!” screamed Hannah, hunched in her seat before Bohler.
There was a second of arm-waving, frenzied attempts to grab the rail and then, in agonizing slow-motion, Gerda went over the rail and plunged down into the well of the silo. Her body seemed weightless and the fall endlessly long. She flopped like a rag doll, once striking the gantry housing and rebounding off against the very well of the silo.
“Oh no,” said Hannah, again. She screwed around in her seat, looking up towards Bohler.
The American stood rigid-faced, unable to get any movement into his body. He realized for the first time how cleverly she had made it appear an accident, to protect him. And then with that thought came another recollection.
“… If we’re caught … if either of us is caught … then they’ll be able to break us easily enough … we musn’t get caught … if we’re detected, we mustn’t let ourselves be caught …”
Gerda’s words: her fear of failing him. The night she had become jealous, imagining he was attracted to Hannah Bloor so soon after they had become lovers.
“This is terrible … awful.”
Bohler became aware of Dr. Muller tugging at his arm, and he looked around at the old man.
“Appalling,” he agreed, needing the other man’s words. “What in the name of God can have happened?”
He moved at last, thrusting out of the control chamber towards the corridor from which he could get into the silo. As he left, he was aware that the two Arabs had stayed unmoving at the rear of the chamber. And that Hannah Bloor was remaining head-bent and shocked at her desk, not following either. By the time they reached the silo, everyone had clambered to the very bottom and grouped around the crushed, pulped body of Gerda Lintz. Bohler stared down, finding it hard to recognize her as the woman he’d held in his arms only two hours before.
The Libyan soldiers stood to one side, one of the officers in conversation with the technician.
“What happened?” demanded Muller.
“The soldiers thought they saw Dr. Lintz interfering with a fuel line,” said a bespectacled man whom Bohler recognized from the breakfast cafeteria that morning. “When I looked down Dr. Lintz shouted that there was an imbalance and started climbing the ladder towards me. She seemed confused by the soldiers and stumbled.…”
With an enormous effort, Bohler forced himself into some reaction, fully appreciating how quickly Gerda had moved to cover her failed attempt at sabotage.
“It’s outrageous,” he yelled, matching Muller’s earlier protests. “Dr. Lintz actually warned you of a problem and was harrassed to her death by this preposterous security.”
Behind them, medical attendants from the complex infirmary were moving with difficulty down the steel ladders, with a stretcher.
Muller turned to him, his face a mixture of anger and uncertainty. “I am so sorry,” he said. “So deeply sorry. This is a dreadful tragedy.”
“And one that was quite unnecessary,” said Bohler, maintaining his attitude. “I shall make the strongest protest to Bonn.”
“With my full and complete backing,” promised Muller. “I protested to Germany about it: I really did.”
The attendants were trying to maneuver Gerda’s body onto the stretcher: Bohler looked for several seconds, then turned away, shuddering. “I’m going to my room, to prepare a full report,” he said.
He managed to retain his control until he got to ground level. The shuddering began just before he got to the door of his quarters. He entered before anyone noticed it. Inside, the shock seized him completely, the emotion jerking through him. He stood pressed back against the door, arms across his chest, gripping himself as if to resist the shaking. It took a long time to subside and when it did he considered it, wondering about the reason. Was it because he had loved her? Or because he was frightened at how near his discovery had been? And still might be? His own fear, he recognized, honestly. He had been lulled by their apparent success and had not realized how deep his apprehension was. He could not have been as brave as Gerda. He would not have been able to think as quickly as she had, providing so acceptable an explanation. Or done what she had done, to protect him. Had he loved her? He demanded the question of himself once more, trying to find a truthful answer. Had he loved her or had the need been for someone to help with the newly accepted fear? The fear, he decided again. He waited for the guilt, but none came. Had she loved him? Or had her need for him been the same as his for her? He would never know. He thought back to the near desperation in which she had held him during the night, and remembered her words as they had entered the elevator with Dr. Muller. He would never truly know, but he thought he could guess.
He moved at last, aware of the danger of the reverie. He recorded a full account of what had happened and warned Peterson to get Bock fully alerted at the Foreign Ministry to intercept the protest when he sent it from the complex. He had just transmitted the message at speed and returned the radio to its apparently real purpose when the tap came lightly on the door. Bohler tensed, half-crouched at his table, staring open-eyed towards the corridor, concerned that the transmission might have been overhead. The knock came again, slightly more insistent than before. Apprehensively he went towards the door, initially opening it little more than a few inches. Hannah Bloor stood in the corridor. Bohler looked at her without speaking for several moments, then stood back.
She came into the room slowly and he watched her intently, alert for any reaction to the radio. She appeared not to notice it.
“I heard what happened from Dr. Muller,” said the project leader. “I wanted to say how very sorry I was.”
“Thank you,” said Bohler.
“She was right,” said Hannah.
“Right?”
“She shouted up to the technicians about a fuel imbalance. For some reason we can’t discover, the hydrazine flow had been reduced. The satellite would have malfunctioned during the last stages.”
“And because she tried to tell you, she died,” said Bohler. So Gerda had succeeded. If there hadn’t been the additional security within the silo, they would have managed what they had been infiltrated to achieve.
“We’re very sorry,” she repeated.
“The responsibility wasn’t yours or Dr. Muller’s,” accepted Bohler, reducing the bitterness.
“Were you very close?”
“Close?”
“Dr. Lintz and yourself. I got the impression that you were quite close.”
“Colleagues, that’s all,” insisted Bohler.
The woman looked at him curiously. “Still upsetting,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Had you known her long?”
“Until this visit, I had not met her before,” said Bohler, honestly.
“She was a very talented scientist.”
“Yes.”
“And an attractive woman.”
“That too,” agreed Bohler, unsure why the woman was pressing the conversation.
“Dr. Muller has put staff on stand-by in the cable room.”
“I’ve hardly considered the report yet,” said Bohler.
“There will be people there, whenever you’re ready promised the woman.”
“Perhaps two hours.”
Hannah looked around his room, apparently examining it for the first time. “Had she any family?” she asked suddenly.
“I don’t know,” said Bohler, honest again. Had there been a fiancé in Russia? A husband even? Throughout their time together she had told him nothing of herself, nor asked anything about his background.
The woman stirred, moving towards the door. “I must get back to the control room,” she said. “So near the launch, there’s a great deal to be done.”
“Of course.”
At the door she turned, looking back towards him. “The launch is going to be overshadowed by this tragedy,” she said.
“All the checks concluded?”
She nodded. “Everything done. We’re into final countdown. There’s nothing that can go wrong.”
The woman was right, accepted Bohler.
Petrov was surprised that Litvinov should travel from Moscow to Odessa, and the curiosity increased when the Politburo member arrived. Litvinov was very subdued, with little of his customary arrogance or animosity. Petrov guessed that the success of the combined operation had undermined the other man’s attacks on him, reducing his credibility with the ruling body. Wanting to increase the other man’s uncertainty, Petrov spent most of the first day recounting in minute detail what was being achieved in Africa, deciding as he talked that he would send a similar report to Moscow while Litvinov was in no position to interfere with or obstruct it.
