The Cardinal of the Kremlin - Tom Clancy [25]
Jack nearly choked. Why the hell didn't you think of it, he growled at himself.
"I mean," Gregory continued, "I mean that's like hundred megawatts of new power. Jesus, what if they made a breakthrough? How hard is it to find out what's happening there?"
"Take a look at the photos and tell me how easy you think it would be to infiltrate the place," Ryan suggested.
"Oh." Gregory looked up. "It would be nice to know how much power they push out the front end of their instrument. How long has this place been there, sir?"
"About four years, and it's not finished yet. Mozart is new. Until recently the workers were housed in this barracks and support facility. We took notice when the apartment building went up, same time as the perimeter fence. When the Russians start pampering the workers, you know that the project has a really high priority. If it has a fence and guard towers, we know it's military."
"How did you find it?" Gregory asked.
"By accident. The Agency was redrawing its meteorological data on the Soviet Union, and one of the technicians wanted to do a computer analysis of the best places over there for astronomical observation. This is one of them. The weather over the last few months has been unusually cloudy, but on average the skies are about as clear there as they are here. The same is true of Sary Shagan, Semipalatinsk, and another new one, Storozhevaya." Ryan set out some more photographs. Gregory looked at them.
"They sure are busy."
"Good morning, Misha," Marshal of the Soviet Union Dmitri Timofeyevich Yazov said.
"And to you, Comrade Defense Minister," Colonel Filitov replied.
A sergeant helped the Minister off with his coat while another brought in a tray with a tea setting. Both withdrew when Misha opened his briefcase.
"So, Misha, what does my day look like?" Yazov poured two cups of tea. It was still dark outside the Council of Ministers building. The inside perimeter of the Kremlin walls was lit with harsh blue-white floods, and sentries appeared and disappeared in the splashes of light.
"A full one, Dmitri Timofeyevich," Misha replied. Yazov wasn't the man that Dmitri Ustinov was, but Filitov had to admit to himself that he did put in a full day's work as a uniformed officer should. Like Filitov, Marshal Yazov was by background a tank officer. Though they had never met during the war, they did know one another by reputation. Misha's was better as a combat officer-purists claimed that he was an old-fashioned cavalryman at heart, though Filitov cordially hated horses-while Dmitri Yazov had won a reputation early on as a brilliant staff officer and organizer-and as a Party man, of course. Before everything else, Yazov was a Party man, else he would never have made the rank of Marshal. "We have that delegation coming in from the expert mental station in the Tadzhik SSR."
"Ah, 'Bright Star.' Yes, that report is due today, isn't it?"
"Academicians," Misha snorted. "They wouldn't know what a real weapon was if I shoved it up their asses."
"The time for lances and sabers is past, Mikhail Semyonovich," Yazov said with a grin. Not the brilliant intellect that Ustinov had been, neither was Yazov a fool like his predecessor, Sergey Sokolov. His lack of engineering expertise was balanced by an uncanny instinct for the merits of new weapons systems, and rare insights into the people of the Soviet Army. "These inventions show extraordinary promise."
"Of course. I only wish that we had a real soldier running the project instead of these starry-eyed professors."
"But General Pokryshkin-"
"He was a fighter pilot. I said a soldier, Comrade Minister. Pilots will support anything that has enough buttons and dials, Besides, Pokryshkin has spent more time in universities of late than in an aircraft. They don't even let him fly himself anymore. Pokryshkin stopped being a soldier ten years ago. Now he is the procurer for the wizards." And he is building his own little