"The general says, if the order comes through, he will not hesitate to follow his duty to the Motherland. He will launch his missiles."
As Natalya translated what General Voroshilov had just said, Benjamin scribbled notes, as though he were taking down every word. But in fact he was scribbling nonsense-in French, just in case the general knew more English than he let on.
They were sitting in General Voroshilov's surprisingly cramped office, in the base administration building, which from the outside looked like an average grocery store. Of course, most grocery stores didn't have soldiers patrolling their hallways with AK-47s.
The moment Benjamin had seen the gates of the military base through the windshield of Boris's jeep, he began to regret his decision to allow Natalya to come along. The high fence, obviously electrified; the dozens of soldiers, all armed with automatic weapons; the forbidding expressions on their faces… all of it made him want to tell Boris to turn the jeep around. Added to that, Natalya had pointed out the large monument of Comrade Lenin. Benjamin thought he saw a malicious smirk on Lenin's lips, as though he was saying Who do you think you are fooling?
At the gate, a soldier took their names, referred to a checklist, then looked very long and hard at their press credentials. Finally, he waved them through, but telling Boris he must park his jeep and wait outside. Boris told Natalya that was okay, there was a soldier's bar nearby where he could wait.
Benjamin asked the questions during the interview and Natalya translated General Voroshilov's answers. The general-a large man with a wide face and a thick neck that the tight collar of his uniform only emphasized, and an easy smile that Benjamin felt wasn't to be taken as quite what it seemed-was obviously eager to praise the dedication and sacrifice of his men, and himself, and at the same time to make it clear that he had under his command the power to devastate large areas of the Western world. He said, looking very stern, that their Voyevoda rockets each had the destructive capacity of 1,200 Hiroshimas.
During all this propaganda, Benjamin looked properly impressed. But finally, Benjamin brought the interview around to the only question he really cared about: What about security? For instance, what if terrorists tried to get to his missiles?
The general looked disdainful, laughed. Even though he was kind enough to entertain two French journalists today, he said, it was not long ago that they would not have been allowed within one hundred kilometers of the base.
And what about the missile silos themselves? asked Benjamin; how well were they protected?
The general spoke at some length, his tone that of an indulgent parent lecturing a child. The entire territory was protected, he said, by cameras and night-vision equipment and special electronic sensors. Each silo was surrounded by an electric fence carrying thousands of volts. He said even the famous Siberian bear wasn't clever enough to cross those fences. Once, one had tried and been "burnt to nothing more than smoking fur." Even the elite Russian Spetsnaz, the Special Forces, had not been able to penetrate their defenses.
As Benjamin jotted down a steady stream of words, his heart sank. This was going to be even more difficult than they'd thought.
Finally, Benjamin said the general had been most helpful. But there was one more favor he could do for them, something to give their article "real spice." He said they would like to interview one or two of the other people involved in the defense of the base, to get some further perspectives on the truly excellent safeguards in place; such assurances, Benjamin said, would go a long way toward quelling Western fears about "loose Russian nukes." Could they, for instance, speak to-and here Benjamin leafed through his notes, as if checking a name-a Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Kalinin, commander of base security?
From the look on General Voroshilov's face, Benjamin was certain he would say nyet. But he seemed to consider it for a moment, then smiled, said something that Natalya translated as, "Of course, we have nothing to hide"-which he accompanied with a wink and a chuckle-and then pressed a button on his phone-intercom system.
Suddenly, Benjamin had a horrible thought: What if Voroshilov was summoning Vasily to his office? What if he would insist they interview Vasily there, in front of him?
But it turned out the general was merely finding out Vasily's location on the base. He then summoned the guard outside, barked some instructions at him, and told Natalya that the soldier would accompany them down the hall to Vasily's office. He shook their hands, insisted they send him a copy of their article, which he promised to mount on his wall, and saw them out the door.
The moment they entered Lieutenant Colonel Kalinin's office, Benjamin caught a look of recognition in his eyes. Vasily looked perplexed for a moment, then instructed the soldier to wait outside, and bid them to sit down.
Once they had, he immediately turned to Natalya and said, "Brunette hair does not become you, Natashka. Not even as a French journalist."
Benjamin went cold. But Natalya returned Vasily's look with a steady gaze.
"How are you, Vasily Nikolaevitch," Natalya replied. "My father sends his greetings. And this." And then she handed him the note Nikolai had given them in Dubna.
Vasily took the note, read it quickly. He looked at them, then stood up and went to the window, still holding the note. He read it again. Then he turned to them.
"Is this a theater?" he said. "Some sort of American James Bond movie?" He came and stood in front of them, leaning against his desk. "Or is it a joke? Because if it is, it is not a very amusing one."
"No," Natalya said firmly, "it is no joke. Not when my father has disappeared." She indicated Benjamin. "Not when a colleague of this man has been killed, all to bring us here."
Vasily looked thoughtful. He went back around his desk and sat down, placing the note carefully on the desk before him.
"And what do those events have to do with Uzhur-4?" he asked.
Benjamin leaned forward. "What we need," he began, "is simply to see one of the missile silos."
Vasily raised his eyebrows. "Simply?" he said. "Now you are making a joke."
"Not one of the active silos," said Natalya. "Number thirty-four. It is empty, I believe."
Vasily looked at her. "That is something I could not say," he said.
"But if it were," Benjamin said, "and if we just needed, say twenty minutes there. Just to… well, look at it." The expression on Vasily's face didn't change. "And if," Benjamin continued, "it was worth, say, twenty thousand dollars for those twenty minutes."
Vasily leaned back in his chair. "Twenty thousand dollars?" he said. "For twenty minutes of 'just looking'?"
"Yes," said Natalya.
"And not to take pictures?" Vasily asked.
"No," Benjamin said. "No pictures. In fact, we don't even wish to see inside the silo-which, if it is full of concrete, as Nikolai told us, wouldn't make much of a picture, anyway."
"Then what-," Vasily began.
"There is an access well," Natalya said, "next to the silo. For equipment. Equipment which was never installed."
Vasily thought about that. "But the hatch to the well is sealed. And there are alarms and mines around the silo, even if it is… decommissioned."
"And that seal," Natalya said, "those alarms and mines, they can all be turned off?"
Vasily rocked in his chair. "For twenty minutes," he said, quite noncommittally.
"Exactly," said Benjamin. "That's all we need."
Vasily turned his chair so he was facing out the window. Again he glanced at Nikolai's note on the desk.
"Nikolai was a very good officer," he said. "A good rocketchiki. A good friend. He may not have told you, but I owe him a great deal. Perhaps my career."
"And he believed in what we are trying to do," Natalya said. "Enough to summon me all the way from the United States. Enough to risk his own life."
"Twenty minutes," he said again, still looking at the note. Then he looked up at Benjamin.
"Do you know, I am charged with keeping safe weapons that could destroy the world. Each year, I am underground eighty, maybe one hundred days. Since I came here, I don't even want to know how many years that is from my wife. And for this, they pay me five hundred dollars a month." He smiled. "For such a request, I think a thousand dollars a minute is not enough."
Benjamin smiled.
"And five thousand dollars a minute," he said. "Is that enough?"