Death Beam, page 38
Milstein’s best guess was that Razrukha, if it functioned according to plan, would deliver more than five thousand rads to an area of some ten square miles, with the dosage decreasing to two thousand rads over a circle of a hundred square miles, and to one thousand rads across a wider circle of two hundred square miles. Within that largest circle, most forms of life that were not in protected shelters would die.
Cockroaches, he decided, would be an exception. The humble Paleoblattidae dated back 350 million years, to the carboniferous era, before dinosaurs appeared in the pattern of evolution. All that they had that resembled a brain was a concentration of nerve ganglia in their heads. But they were the earth’s greatest survivors. Milstein had heard that there were a lot of roaches in New York. He found this an interesting datum, since he was certain of one thing: the roaches would be all that would be moving above ground in Manhattan, and within a radius of a hundred miles, if Marshal Safronov gave the order to push the button and fire the beam.
The enormity of the weapon’s death-dealing power and the defenselessness of the victims were not its only unique qualities. It would also make it possible for a conqueror to occupy the cities and towns of a target country without reducing the property value of a single house. Radiation does not last forever. As a general rule, it drops to one-tenth of its initial strength after each time factor of seven: in other words, the risk from fallout will have dropped to a tenth after seven hours, and after two weeks it will have dropped to one-thousandth of what it was after one hour. If Razrukha was used, it might be only a matter of days before the marshal’s soldiers came to claim the ownerless real estate and to pick off the survivors.
Milstein had agonized over the possible consequences of his scientific work long before his encounter with Marshal Safronov in the Baikonur control room. But the mood he had sensed that day had brought home to him the reality of unleashing the most hideous instrument of mass destruction that man had devised—an instrument which he, more than anyone else, was responsible for bringing into the world. He had seen men who loved war, who even sniffed after it, with their fingers poised above the button.
Then Misha had told him things that had sharpened his fear into a knife that twisted among his entrails. Misha, the callous spy chief who was unrecognizable as the handsome, open youth he had grown up with in Stuttgart before the war, had suddenly revealed something of his former self in explaining why the marshal had to be stopped.
“Razrukha is your child,” Misha had said to him, with a strange, fleeting smile plucking at his mouth. “That gives you the right to kill it.”
When he had said he would do it, Klaus Milstein found that for the first time in years, his hands had stopped shaking and he could hold himself upright, as if he had reason to be proud.
The mechanics of arranging his return to the Baikonur Cosmodrome were easier than Misha or Rael had imagined. He sat down in his study and drafted, overnight, a memorandum expressing some last-minute doubts about whether the flux-compression process by which the energy generated by a mini-thermonuclear explosion would be converted into electrical power to produce the beam had been accurately adjusted to the condition of outer space. His art was to couch the memo in a succession of impenetrable scientific formulas. A senior physicist who specialized in advanced beam technology would probably have recognized Milstein’s memo as the scientific equivalent of a nonsense rhyme. But it was addressed to Chief Designer Berzin, who was essentially a political apparatchik who had compensated for a third-rate, derivative mind by stealing the research discoveries of the scientists who had to answer to him. Klaus Milstein calculated that the chief designer would not wish to put his ignorance on show by consulting the specialists at the Lebedev Institute in Moscow. And that at the same time Berzin would feel that he could not run the risk of a failure for which he would be held personally accountable by ignoring an urgent warning from the man who created Death Beam.
Milstein had accurately assessed the psychology of his former boss.
Though Marshal Safronov had instructed him to “get rid of that jid,” Chief Designer Berzin thought it was clear that the marshal had meant this to be done as soon as Milstein’s usefulness was exhausted.- Within two hours of his receipt of Milstein’s memo, a message from Berzin arrived in East Berlin demanding the scientist’s return to Baikonur the same day on a special military flight.
“It will be like Telemark,” Milstein whispered to Rael as they sat, in solitary splendor, on board the Ilyushin turbojet. Since Misha had briefed him on the full extent of Marshal Safronov’s ambitions, the old scientist had been polishing the analogy between the intended sabotage of the Razrukha project and the daring commando mission that had destroyed a Nazi heavy-water plant in Norway and so helped to prevent Hitler from acquiring the Bomb.
“Telemark,” he repeated, rubbing his chin against the shabby collar of his ancient Harris-tweed jacket.
“But not quite so violent, I hope,” Rael whispered back, patting his arm.
The most extraordinary element in the scene was her presence.
Misha had objected violently at the outset, insisting that her desire to go to Baikonur with Milstein could jeopardize the whole mission. To provide her with plausible documentation to travel inside the Soviet Union was easy enough. But the number of people admitted through the zealously guarded perimeter of the Razrukha project was tightly restricted; there was no way that Misha could provide her with clearances that would stand up to any degree of scrutiny. And there was another constraining factor on Misha’s side. He did not intend that the trail of the saboteurs should lead back to him. Why burn his boats?
If they failed, well, escape to the West might be the only course left to him. But if they succeeded, there would be other, more appetizing, possibilities. The destruction of the Razrukha project might finally arm Marshal Safronov’s rivals with the courage to move against him. In that event, Misha might be able to emerge stronger than ever. As long as whatever happened at Baikonur could not be laid at his door. Which was a very good reason for doing nothing to facilitate the entry of an Israeli secret agent to Russia’s most protected military facility.
But Rael insisted on going. “He needs to be looked after,’’ she had said, patting Milstein’s arm.
To Misha’s surprise, it was the habitually reticent, unworldly scientist who solved the problem. It was plain that Klaus Milstein, for many years a widower, had fallen in love with Rael at first sight. A benign, paternal kind of love, to be sure. Milstein was sufficiently smitten to recall that he had once had a girl assistant at the Lebedev Institute called Lena Aldrich, who had since married and was leading a quiet life as the wife of a university professor in Leipzig.
“But did she look like this?” Misha had asked skeptically. At the time, Rael was wearing an eye-catching red turtleneck sweater that clung to her bust, with her long black hair hanging free.
“Not exactly,” Milstein had conceded.
But in the end, they did their best to make Rael look the part. Even in owlish glasses, her hair tied back in a bun and thoughtfully streaked with gray, and wearing a drab maroon suit that made her look fatter, her feminine attractions were not completely disguised. But equipped with the false papers that a trusted man in Department K was ordered to prepare, she might just pass muster—assuming that Milstein was right when he said that neither Chief Designer Berzin nor anyone else at Baikonur had ever met the real Lena Aldrich.
It was in this guise that Rael joined Klaus Milstein on the special flight to Baikonur.
At their last meeting, after her father had been packed off back to Israel, Misha had returned her parting kiss. He had also.said, “If you blow it, don’t come running back to me.”
• • •
Chief Designer Berzin sometimes found his attention drifting away from the reports on the acrylic surface of his work table and into a recurring and extremely pleasant daydream. He saw himself at a mass ceremony inside the Kremlin walls, standing a dozen paces or so in front of the mass of technicians and scientists who had been engaged in Project Razrukha. The galleries were lined with the entire membership of the Supreme Soviet and the Academy of Sciences. While anthems played, Berzin saw himself marching up the red carpet to the podium where the members of the Politburo were seated. He saw the whole auditorium rise to its feet in a standing ovation as General Secretary Manilov pinned the Order of Lenin to his chest, already covered with the ribbons of other decorations. He heard Manilov announce that in recognition of his services to the Soviet Rodina, he had been declared a Hero of the Soviet Union and would take up the office of chairman of the State Commission of Science and Technology. He saw himself enjoying the spoils of success: country dachas, Zil limousines, lissome secretaries who could refuse him nothing. And, at the end of it all, he saw his name commemorated on a plaque on the Kremlin Wall beside that of Korolev, the famous former chief of the space rocket program.
The message from Klaus Milstein had punctured Berzin’s comforting daydream. The chief designer could make neither head nor tails of Milstein’s equations. Maybe the old man had finally cracked. They had run endless tests, and everything appeared to be functioning according to plan. Milstein could not have picked a worse time to develop the jitters. The day before, they had mated the Razrukha satellite to the thirty-story-tall Super Booster rocket that would carry it aloft, after carrying out a twenty-second test firing of the rocket engines. Workers on the launch pad had just completed the laborious task of clamping back the steel scaffolding that would protect the delicate silica tiles that lined the satellite’s skin until the launch. Razrukha and its rockets were safely concealed from overhead surveillance in a huge man-made crater half a mile deep, protected by a reinforced shield that would withstand anything except a direct missile hit. It would be no joke if they were obliged to dismantle the rocket assembly at this late stage in order to examine Razrukha all over again.
It had occurred to Chief Designer Berzin that Milstein might be fantasizing deliberately, in order to prove that his presence was indispensable to the success of the project, and thereby steal some of the credit away from Berzin himself. Befuddled by Milstein’s message, he could have sent it to Moscow for evaluation by the experts at the Lebedev Institute. But Berzin had rivals there who might have seized on an appeal for consultation at this point as evidence that he was incompetent. The competition between the directors of the Soviet scientific establishment was just as vicious as the infighting among their political masters. The easiest thing to do, Berzin decided, was to bring Milstein back, let him state his case, and pack him off again as quickly as possible. After all, Klaus Milstein could pose no threat to the chief designer. The marshal had already said that they should get rid of the jid.
Berzin was pleasantly surprised by Milstein’s female companion, and made a great fuss of kissing her hand. It was a pity she didn’t use makeup and wear more fashionable clothes, he thought. The girl was really quite pretty.
“It’s strange we never ran into each other at the Lebedev Institute,” Berzin said to Rael with over-oiled charm. “Milstein must have been hiding you away from me. ’ ’
“I was only involved in the theoretical phase of the project,” Rael said, looking at the ground with a show of modesty that she felt was in keeping with the character she was trying to represent.
“Ah, but all the fun is in the practice,” Berzin smirked, with a plodding attempt at humor. Lena Aldrich. The girl’s name rang a distant bell. Milstein had had a succession of female assistants in Moscow. Berzin remembered one of them, a pallid bluestocking type with a bad skin and a limp, clammy handshake. But he had certainly never seen a girl like this in Milstein’s office. He studied the movement of her hips as he ushered her ahead of him into the room with the bright-green walls.
“You’d better explain yourself, Klaus,” the chief designer said when they were all seated as comfortably as the stark office furniture permitted.
Milstein sailed off into a squall of scientific jargon. Berzin, diverted by the ripe figure of the girl, who was trying to hide her looks behind the ridiculously unflattering glasses, soon stopped trying to follow him. The chief designer began to picture what the girl would look like if she took off the granny glasses and let her hair down. The mental image he formed was extremely inviting. If she was so useful to Milstein, he thought, he could not be faulted for offering her a job on his own staff. Milstein did not know how to appreciate her anyway. It was probably years since Milstein had had a woman.
“Get to the point,” Berzin ordered the old scientist, masking his distractedness in a display of authority.
And Milstein was off again. All the chief designer could grasp was that there might be a problem with the flux-compression system.
Berzin groaned. “Do you mean we have to open the thing up again?”
“Unless you want to run the risk that if Razrukha is ever fired, it will explode on itself and destroy the space battle station instead of its target.”
It took a crew of two hundred men using robot decoupling devices over three hours to disengage the scaffolding and lower the Razrukha satellite to rails on the floor of the underground launching pad.
Rael, watching from a command platform, was awed by the scene. The Super Booster rocket towered up through the gloom like a platinum-gray cathedral. Lying on its side, the Razrukha satellite looked like a monstrous wingless insect. She saw Milstein, mounted on the platform of a vehicle like an enormous fork-lift truck, supervising the technicians who were working to open the side panels.
Long before Milstein had completed his inspection, the chief designer came to take her away to the canteen for dinner.
“Naturally, the base is dry,” he said. “But tonight, we are making an exception.” A steward brought sweet Russian champagne, the sort that has to be drunk in gulps before the bubbles disappear.
Rael fenced with Berzin’s questions about her scientific qualifications, wishing she had had more time to memorize her legend. She thought that she had been caught out at one point, when the chief designer looked at her quizzically after she had said something about her supposed work at the Lebedev Institute. But it soon became apparent that Berzin’s mind was on other things.
“How come you’re back with Milstein?” he asked.
“I got bored with being a housewife,” she lied. “And he needs someone to look after him. He’s a brilliant man, a genius. But you know how vague he can be.”
Berzin snorted, and fished in his lentil soup for a chunk of thick peasant sausage.
“Milstein is too old,” he said. “He’s finished. When we’ve seen this project through, you’d do better to come to Moscow and work with me. I’m going to be a very important man, you know. One of the most important men in Russia.”
“I’m flattered, Comrade Berzin.”
The chief designer mopped his mouth with his napkin. “Your Russian is excellent,” he complimented her. “But of course, you’ve still got a German accent. It will go, with enough practice.”
Rael was inwardly grateful that her mother had insisted that her children master her native tongue.
“You shouldn’t wear those glasses all the time, you know,” Berzin went on. “They age you.”
“I’m afraid I can’t see where I’m going without them.” Rael did not dare to take off the offending spectacles for fear that he would see that the lenses were clear glass.
Her situation was relieved by the arrival of a thickset man in military uniform. The angry expression that molded his coarse features softened only a little at the sight of Rael.
The newcomer nodded curtly to the girl before challenging Berzin, in the tone that a self-important head waiter might use to a busboy.
“What the hell is Milstein doing back here?” General Osipov thundered.
The chief designer nervously crumpled his napkin into a ball. “Just a last-minute check,’’ he explained. “I thought it would be useful to have a second opinion.”
“I’ve just talked to the marshal,” said Osipov. “He wants Milstein off the base right away. The mood the marshal’s in, I’m surprised he didn’t order me to put both of you under arrest. ’ ’
The color had drained from the chief designer’s face. He got up hastily from the table and said, “I’ll see to it immediately.” He turned to Rael, his other plans forgotten under the menace of Marshal Safronov’s displeasure. “You’d better come too.”
Despite the late hour and the fact that he had not eaten all day, Klaus Milstein had a beatific expression on his face on the flight back to East Berlin. A couple of Russian army officers had hitched a ride—perhaps to keep an eye on the passengers, Rael reflected—and it was only when she was sure that they were not within hearing range that she whispered to the scientist, “Well?”
“It’s done,” he said, folding his hands over his stomach. He did not feel like a man who had just strangled his child. He felt cleansed.
“But how?”
“The basic source of energy for the weapon is supplied by fusion,” he murmured into her ear. “A controlled, mini-thermonuclear explosion. I’ve tinkered with the device so that it will go off when they test the rocket engines again. I managed to find out that there is going to be another test tomorrow. No time for detailed explanations now,” he added hastily.
They both fell silent at the sight of one of the Russian officers walking deliberately toward them down the aisle. Rael tensed, wondering if they had been found out.
The Russian smiled at her appreciatively and said, “I thought perhaps I could bring you some coffee from the galley. There is no steward on this plane.”
