The Baltic Sea, October 1962
The fishing trawler smelled of brine, diesel, and decades of dried fish. Mikhail and Davies huddled in the cramped storage hold, soaked to the bone and freezing. The boat shuddered as its engine roared to life, pulling away from the dangerous Helsinki docks.
"Who are they?" Davies whimpered, clutching his camera bag. "Who was shooting at us? The Russians? The Americans?"
"Conspirators," Mikhail spat out, checking the contents of the briefcase again. The documents were dry, thank God. "They work for the same people who want this war."
The trawler captain, a weathered old Finn who clearly wanted no part of this international incident but needed the money Mikhail had pressed into his hand, stayed silent at the helm.
Mikhail began to sift through the documents by the weak light of a single bulb. The intelligence was devastating. There were photographs of American military personnel meeting with Soviet hardliners in East Germany. There were internal memos outlining how to manipulate intelligence feeds to make the Soviet missile threat seem more imminent and aggressive than it truly was. Most damning was a communications schematic for a "closed loop" network that bypassed standard intelligence agencies in both countries.
"This is it," Mikhail whispered, running his finger over a typed name: General Curtis LeMay, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff. And next to it, the name of a Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky.
"They're working together to force a first strike scenario," Mikhail said, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "They want the conflict to happen so badly they are creating the incidents to justify it."
"We need to get this information to someone who hasn't been compromised," Mikhail stated. "The KGB is looking for me, the CIA likely doesn't care or is involved. We need neutral ground, maybe London."
The trawler pitched violently in the rough Baltic waves. Their journey had just begun, a desperate race against time and two superpowers’ deep-state conspiracies.
Georgetown, Washington D.C., October 1962
Elias Thorne expertly tuned his old transceiver, the sound of static occasionally interrupted by faint voices in various languages. Evelyn paced the room, the bourbon doing nothing to calm her nerves.
"We need proof," she said again, staring at the blank wall as if she could project the Helsinki documents onto it.
"Patience, Evelyn. The airwaves are talking if you know how to listen." Thorne paused, a concentrated look on his face. "Ah, there we go. A military frequency. Low power, non-standard authorization."
He handed Evelyn a set of headphones. She placed them over her ears, the muffled sounds of a conversation in clipped military code coming through.
"Zulu Tango, this is November Mike. Package Alpha moving to drop point Bravo."
"Zulu Tango received," a crackling voice replied. "Is 'Black Sand' secure?"
"Black Sand secure. Wait for 'Ignite' confirmation before proceeding."
Evelyn tore the headphones off. "They're talking about the code names! They're moving the 'package' now. Elias, they're using a low-power frequency that only a handful of people would be monitoring."
"Precisely my point," Thorne said, his eyes sharp. "That conversation isn't coming from Langley or the Pentagon. It’s coming from inside the D.C. area, maybe Virginia, maybe Maryland. They’re coordinating a domestic operation right under the CIA's nose."
"We can't track that signal fast enough," Evelyn said, desperation creeping into her voice.
"No, but the man who owes me a favor at State... he's good with signals intelligence," Thorne said, grabbing the phone again. "We might be able to triangulate that approximate location. Evelyn, we might just catch them in the act."
A new urgency filled the room. The abstract hunt for a conspiracy had just become a physical hunt for a location. The two lone analysts, one young and one old, prepared to face down the rogue elements of their own government in the capital city itself. The war wasn't just happening in Cuba or the Baltic sea.It was happening right outside their door.
No comments:
Post a Comment