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After a lengthy handshake the two men went to the table where the commissar presented to him the plans.
Boris took them. He received them out of the commissar's own hands. He spread them out again, bent over them in a frantic search for a clue that would confirm or deny what Alexei had said to him about the Bureau's hopes for a false launch of one of their missiles. This project would be a link. It had to be. Everything did fit. But how? Indeed, how could the whole thing fit together if it wasn't by design and of a manner that he could recognize? He felt that if the Bureau had a secret scheme, it would have to become evident to him in this manner, and would have to be clearly recognizable in these drawings. He searched them carefully, looking for insignificant seeming details, all the while hoping against hope that he would find nothing.
Unfortunately, he did find what he was hoping not to find. Ironically, he almost missed it. It was so obvious. One of the drawings showed an underground power line crossing right under the excavation area. It was marked as a steel-wrapped high voltage cable that had been laid ten years earlier. It connected the control center with the power station. If someone were to break the cable at the right moment, someone as familiar with the procedures as he was.... It wouldn't be hard to cause an 'accidental' launch.
"Damn!" He hated the idea. He almost choked at the thought of it, but could he do it? Could he do it for Tania? He knew he would. They had died so many times in his dreams. They would die no more. Before him lay the key.
He shuddered momentarily as he stared at the thin line across the sheet of paper. He understood what it meant, what the entire construction plan was all about, the timing of the construction, his inevitable involvement, his inability to pull out. It all became totally clear. Before him lay an invitation by the state from the highest levels, to commit an act of sabotage for which he could be executed, but which would save humanity and save his own life, and with it, that of his family. It was an order for great actions. It was a command encoded in a manner that only he would understand.
So, the nightmare was true, he thought, it had begun in earnest. The state was making a demand that was taller than any other demand that was ever made on him on anyone at the base. He knew he would have to find a way of coming to terms with that new situation.
The plan was as convincingly authentic as any direct order would have been, signed and delivered by the chief himself. There was the location of the building. The location was logical only for its location above the power line. He could see no other imperative for it. And then there were all the other coincidences that fitted together into a web of total consistency. Those were all too well drawn together to be a mere coincidence. For instance, as he had told him already, there was no logic in Alexei taking a flight through Kiev, coming from Moscow, unless there had been a deeper reason behind it that was linked to the plan. Evidently, there was a vast organizational network in operation behind the scenes that had the power to alter airline schedules, allocate huge amounts of funding for frivolous projects while the nation was starving. On the other hand, he found it still hard to believe that anyone would actually devise such a plan, considering the consequences if something went wrong, unless... Perhaps this meant that nothing could go wrong. Perhaps it meant that the entire project was 100% safe.
Absorbed in his pondering over the clue that he found, he barely noticed the commissar standing beside him. "Let me give you your own copy. You may wish to study them." The commissar said these things proudly as he handed him a long cardboard container. He could sense that the commissar didn't know what this was all about, but had been given 'recommendations.' This meant that probably nobody else knew about this at the base, except Alexei.
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Stories about
War
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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