"Brown, Dale - Silver Tower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Dale)
"What offensive?" Barnes said. "A CIA report circulated ffirough the division last month about a suspected, unusually large-scale Russian push into Afghanistan sometime this fall."
Barnes shook his head. "The CIA calls every resupply mission to Afghanistan an offensive. Overland routes into the central highland have been cut off recently by bad weather and the Afghan government has all but folded its tents. Naturally the Russians have had to step up supply flights." "But, sir, not with as many as six Condors.... Those photos showed hangars large enough for An-124s-" "Condors?" Sahl didn't like to hear that. "'Where did you see Condors in the southern military district?" "It's ... an educated guess, sir. Those large temporary hangars I mentioned in the report are large enough to accommodate Condors- "Or any other Soviet aircraft flying," Barnes said. Collins looked away-he'd never expected to have to fight off his section chief. "What else?" Sahl prompted him. "Your report mentioned the rail units. You counted forty percent more activity in the Tashkent yards. What about -that?" "Yes, sir, the actual count is up thirty-seven percent from activity this same time last year, also several weeks prior to maneuvers, and up twenty-four percent from the Soviets' last real large-scale offensive into Afghanistan two years ago, when they put down the Qandahar uprising. And that had been the largest Soviet offensive since their invasion of Czechoslovakia. Whatever they're planning now, it'll be larger than either of those.-" "Collins," Barnes said quickly, "you can't make conclusions like that based simply on the number of rail cars in a switching yard. There could be dozens of reasons why there were more cars there.... Look-- and he softened his voice--these reports can set a lot of things in motion. Things that cost a lot of money and a lot of effort by a lot of people. Dangerous things. They get a lot of attention. If we're wrong and we send all these men and machines off on a wild goose chase. . . ."
Collins' face hardened. He dropped two eleven-by-fourteen
black-and-white photographs on Sahl's desk. "You can't ignore this, Mr. Sahl," he said, pointing a finger at the first photo. Sahl studied it. "What . . . ?" "It's a computer-enhanced KH-14 image of one side of one of the large two-acre hangars at Nikolai Zhukovsky Military Airfield at Tashkent." Sahl peered at the highly magnified photo. Trailing behind the hangar was, he saw, a fuzzy, rectangular object. Almost no firm detail, though. He studied
the photo for a moment longer, looked up at'Collins. "It's a scrub photo." "Sir, it is a photo of a GL-25 missile launcher. There are- 11
"Collins, it's a scrub photo," Sahl repeated. "Magnification, contrast, grain, background-it's not worth piss for analysis. It's a scrub photo." "Sir, I counted seventy of this same weird-looking rail car in Tashkent. All of them surrounded by guards, all of them bracketed by 'security rail cars. I understand no certain judgment can be made on the basis of this photo, but an educated guess can easily be made--it's a GL-25 long-range cruise missile launcher, mounted on an all-terrain carrier. Here, looktwo missile canisters, the control center-" "It looks like a concrete container to me," Barnes said. "Or a gravel container. There's nothing unusual about it." "The KH-14 wasnt properly stabilized," Collins said, "but you can still make out the-" "Collins, you can't make out that kind of detail on a scrub photo," Barnes snapped. "I can. I did, sir. " "If you look at a photo-any photo-long enough," Sahl said quietly, "you'll likely see what you want to see. That's why we have parameters for how much a photo can be enlarged or cropped. " "Then I'd like to request another overflight by the KH-14," Collins said. "We need more photos of those rail cars." "All right, all right," Sahl said. "I agree. I can start the request for some air time on KH- 14 for Tashkent, but I'm not sure if they'll approve it." "Sir, I realize you suspect this is just another junior photo
interpreter trying to score points, but it's not. I really believe there's something going on. Something big."
Sahl tried to hide a wry smile, took one more look at the photos, then tossed them on the desk. "You mentioned Iran. Tell me, Collins, how could six invisible Condor transports and seventy alleged GL-25 mobile missile launchers in Tashkent lead you to the assumption that this is all part of an Iranian invasion group?"
Collins hesita ted. Too late to retreat now, buddy, he told himself. "It wasn't just the missiles or the transports, sir. It's the buildup of Russian ships in the Persian Gulf and the Brezhnev carrier battle group that sneaked into the Gulf last month. It was that unsuccessful counterrevolution in Iran that CIA said was sponsored and financed by the Russians. It's-" "It's also bull, Collins," Barnes cut in. "Your job isn't to come up with a wild hypothesis basedon second- and thirdhand information. Your job is to take KH-14 imagery and describe it. Period." "I thought my job was analysis. This is important, I know it. And I know it's urgent enough to require special attention-" "Are you sure it's not you who wants the special attention?" Barnes said, fixing him with a drop-dead stare.
Sahl raised a hand. "That's enough for now, Preston. I believe Collins is one hundred percent sincere. Give him that." He turned to the photo interpreter. "Hot dogs come by the gross around here, Mr. Collins. Plenty of people want to make the splash, but they do it knowing that they don't have to take the heat---the real heat-if they're wrong. Are you willing to take the heat?"
His question hung in the air for a moment, a long moment; then Sahl said, "Why don't we try a little experiment? I'm going to. put your name on this report. I'll clear it for the director's review and put it on his desk with a recommendation based on your findings that we follow up on this with another series of KH-14 overflights. If there's any heat from the director's staff, you take it. Sound good?"
Collins looked frozen in place.... It's not a KH-14 Block Three analysis, he thought, or a Satellite Photo Recce section report-it's my report. A Jackson Collins report. Okay, damn
it, I asked for it . . . "Yes, sir-with one request. That I be given another week to make the presentation my way."
Sahl glanced at Barnes. "What's wrong with this?" and glanced at the thick report on his desk. "It's a standard section report, sir. As it stands it
doesn't convince anyone of the seriousness developing at Tashkent. I mean, it didn't convince you!" "And whose fault is that?" Barnes said. "It's mine, sir. I'd like a chance to fix it."
Sahl was impressed. This wasn't what you'd expect from a youngster. "I'm putting it on the director's staff-meeting agenda for Friday," he said. "Ibis is Tuesday. You have until Friday morning to redo the report and refine your presentation. If you can't do it by then, forget it. This division doesn't operate on your personal timetable or mine or anybody's. I I
No hesitation this time from Collins. "Thank you, sir. I'll be ready."
He hoped.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
"Your turn. "
doing something that only a few hundred people have ever done. "
She acted as if she hadn't heard him. "Take weight training. I love to run, but pumping iron---or, in space, pumping rubber-was never my idea of fun." "You're good at it." "I do it because it helps keep me fit and because we're required to do it. I could spend hours on the bicycle or treadmill, but after a half hour on the Soloflex machine I'm ready to volunteer to change C02 scrubbers, vacuum the walls, anything. "
Moyer gave a sympathetic nod. Ann laid down on the machine's bench, centered the bar above her chest-and found herself immediately focusing on a hand hold on the ceiling and consciously controlling her breathing. "Still getting the spins, Ann?" "Damn," she said as she fought for control. "They told me it would only take a matter of days and I'd get over it. But it's just not going away."
Moyer let her lie quietly on the workout bench for a few moments. Then: "Better?" "Yeah," she said, blinking and taking a few deep breaths. She tried performing a few more repetitions but the nausea returned. "Why don't you call it a workout," Moyer said, realizing she had a ways to go before she was fully acclimated. "It's okay ... ?" she said. "Sure. You've been at this for an hour. That's enough for today.
She flashed a grateful smile, then made her way "down" the exercise module, through a vertical hatch, and into the sleep area.
If you were in a bad mood, she decided, the sleep module could be a depressing place. Because of Silver Tower's lower than Earth-normal atmospheric density, and because the real noisemakers on the station-the four attitude-adjustment thr-usters-were almost two hundred yards away on the ends of the station's center beam, the station was already a very quiet place to be. But the sleep module, which was well
insulated and isolated from most of the station's activity, was even quieter; and, despite its light, cheery atmosphere, its plants and its decorations, it resembled a mausoleum. With three groups of two horizontal telephone-booth-sized curtained sleep chambers on each side of the module, she could not suppress the thought of rows of caskets stacked all around her.
Putting the sleep chambers out of her mind, Ann retrieved a bathrobe and headed for her PHS, personal hygiene station.
Showers in space were little more than complicated sponge baths. She first
donned a pair of plastic eye protectors, like sunbathers or swimmers wear, then wet a washcloth with a stream of water. As she directed a short stream of warm water along her body, the blobs of water that didn't shoot out in all directions like soft BBs made eerie amoeba-like puddles. The puddles moved everywhere-up her back, up her legs, under her anns--as if they truly did have tiny little legs.
Next she sprayed a little liquid soap on the'washclodi, scrubbed herself with the cloth and a handy water blob, then rinsed. Even a relaxed vacuum shower used about five galIons of water; the occupant might actually drown in floating water blobs if there was more than five gallons of water loose in the shower.
Before opening the shower door and reaching for a towel, she activated a rubber-covered button. A powerful fan built into the shower floor sucked the water blobs from their orbits all around her down to collectors in the floor. She swept a few persistent blobs from the shower walls, took off the plastic eye protectors, opened the stall and reached for a towel. A wide min-or mounted on the wall caught her reflection, and as she had done three weeks before in the visiting officer's quarters back in Vandenburg she stopped to take stock. Space was murder on a woman. Even though daily exercise had kept her face naturally lean, fluids and fat cells had redistributed themselves, giving her a slightly Oriental look, which contrasted with a noticeable increase in heightmicrogravity had awarded her three extra inches-and a loss in body weight of about six pounds.
Well, maybe as usual she was too hard on herself, but she certainly didn't feel too desirable at the moment, although
normal female desires were intact. Part of it, she Imew, was that her work on Skybolt had gone forward in fits and starts, with more problems to overcome than she'd anticipated. Any time her work was not going well her self-image took a hit. She knew it was irrational to link her desirability as a woman with her progress in the laboratory, but she couldn't separate the two.... She had been using her intelligence and professional acumen to win acceptance for so long.
Telling herself to cut it out, she promptly ignored her own injunction, wondering what the station's commander, Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael, thought of her work so far. A strange man, Saint-Michael. Difficult to get a fix on. Considering what Colonel Walker had told her about the general's sponsorship of her project, she had expected a warm welcome from him. But their first meeting the day after she arrived had been a very perfunctory affair indeed. When the conversation turned briefly to the laser, he had shown little enthusiasm'. It seemed he was preoccupied with something else and not really listening to what she had said.
As she pulled on a fresh, powder-blue flight suit and set off for the station's galley, she mentally reviewed what else she'd learned about Saint-Michael in the short time she'd been here. Most of her information had come from the talkative engineering chief, Wayne Marks. The way Marks told it, SaintMichael was a legend in Space Command-what some called a "fast burner. " After graduating at the top of his pilot class he'd made captain easily and become an Air Training Command instructor pilot. From ATC it was on to Air Command and Staff college at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, where he wrote a paper laying out fundamentals of what would later be called the United States Space Command, an organization that would control America's space-based defensive armaments.
Saint-Michael's paper somehow found its way to the desk of the president, who liked what he read, and Saint-Michael, at age forty, found himself with a general's star and stewardship of the nascent Space Command-an organization that at the time existed only on paper. How Saint-Michael was able to build up Space Command to its present level was never precisely clear to anyone outside the inner circle of powerbut it was said that the general, by sheer charismatic force, had eventually been able to make converts out of his strongest adversaries. It seemed he had that sort of effect on people.
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