Tom Clancy's op-centre_ mirror image - Tom Clancy [93]
But history was one thing, and urgency was quite another. Orlov would have preferred a diesel engine to this relic, but it was all the transportation director in Vladivostok had been able to spare. If there was one thing Orlov had learned about government and the military, it was that a car or train or plane in hand, whatever the vintage, was more negotiable than nothing. You could always try to swap for something better.
Not that the engine was bad, he thought. Despite six decades of wear and tear it was in relatively good repair, Nikita concluded. The main rod, connecting rod, and driving wheels were strong, the cylinders solid. In addition to the coal tender, it was pulling two cars and a caboose. It traveled at a good speed, over forty miles an hour in the driving snow. At that speed, and with two soldiers stoking the boiler in shifts, Lieutenant Orlov expected to clear the storm within sixteen or seventeen hours. According to his aide and radio operator, Corporal Fodor, that would put them between Khabarovsk and Bira.
Nikita and the blond, baby-faced Fodor sat on opposite ends of a wooden table in the first boxcar. One third of the wooden crates were stacked pyramid style, six rows deep in the far side of the car. The shutter on the right side of the train was open with a parabolic dish clamped to the ledge, facing out. Two cables ran from the dish to the briefcase-sized secure telephone sitting beneath it on a blanket on the floor. Fodor had tacked a canvas sheet over the open portion of the window to keep the wind and snow out. He had to get up every few minutes to brush the wet snow from the dish itself.
Both men were wearing heavy, white, fur-lined winter coats and boots. Their gloves and a lantern sat on the table between them. Nikita was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and holding the backs of his bare hands next to the lantern. Fodor worked on a battery-powered laptop. They had to yell to each other in order to be heard over the screaming winds and rattling wheels.
"It would take, sir, three fifty-mile round-trips by an Mi-8 to carry the cargo to the nearest spot where a jet could land," Fodor said as he studied the green and black map on the screen. He turned the computer so it was facing the officer. "That's here, sir, just northwest of the Amur River."
Nikita looked at the screen, his thick, black brows pulled together in thought. "If we can get a plane, that is. I still don't understand the trouble in Vladivostok, why there was nothing available but this train."
"Maybe we're at war, sir," Fodor joked, "and no one bothered to tell us."
The phone beeped. Fodor leaned back and answered it, poking a finger in his other ear so he could hear. A moment later, he moved the lantern aside and handed the black receiver to Nikita.
"It's Korsakov, relaying a call from General Orlov," Fodor said, his eyes wide, a trace of awe in his voice.
His expression stony, Nikita got on and shouted, "Yes, sir."
"Can you hear me?" the General asked.
"Barely! If you'll speak up, sir--"
General Orlov said slowly, distinctly, "Nikita, we believe that an Il-76T controlled by a foreign government may try and intercept your train late tonight. We're trying to determine who or what is on board, but to do that I need to know what your cargo is."
Nikita's gaze shifted from his lap to the crates. He couldn't understand why his father didn't just ask the officer in charge of the operation. "Sir," he said, "Captain Leshev did not share that information with me."
"Then I'd like you to open one," General Orlov said. "I'm entering the order in my log and you won't be held responsible for inspecting the shipment."
Nikita was still looking at the crate. He had been curious about the contents and, acknowledging the order, asked his father to hold the line.
After handing the