Major.” The duty officer manning the ops desk gave him a message instead of another flight. “The CO wants to see you.”
Nodding, Dodge retraced his steps through the corridors to the flight commander’s office. He’d known Lt. Colonel Sean McGee for years, had flown with him back when they were both gung ho lieutenants doing combat rescue. Dodge greeted his friend back with the irreverent graveyard humor that had earned McGee his nickname.
“Morning, Digger. You want to see me?”
“Not me. Colonel Yarboro.”
Dodge’s brows lifted. “The Mighty Ninety commander? Why?”
“His exec didn’t offer any specifics. Just said Yarboro wants you to report to his office.” Propping a boot on an open desk drawer, McGee tilted back in his chair. “Might have something to do with my suggestion, though.”
“The one that involves my permanent transition back from civilian status?” Dodge asked with a smile.
“That’s the one.”
“Wish I could oblige.”
McGee knew Dodge now ran his own aerial-survey company. He didn’t, however, know about his work for OMEGA. The agency was so secret that few people outside of a trusted handful were even aware of its existence.
“Think about it,” McGee urged. “You haven’t lost your touch. My guys tell me you aced both checkrides.”
“Yeah, well,” Dodge drawled in the Wyoming twang he’d never quite shed. “Flyin’ a Huey’s like makin’ love to a beautiful woman. Once you get her out of the chocks, everything else comes naturally.”
McGee grinned. “You’ve sure as hell gotten more than your share out of the chocks. And escaped their clutches afterward. You and I both know your handle doesn’t come just from dodging bulls.”
Dodge kept his smile in place and let the comment slide. He’d loved once, or thought he had. The memory could still slice into him when he let it.
“I’d better go see what the colonel wants.”
He reported in to the commander of the 90th Missile Wing fifteen moments later. Seated behind a desk roughly the size of Kansas, Colonel Yarboro returned his salute and waved him to a seat.
“You ready for the Russian team?”
“Yes, sir.”
The colonel’s eyes raked him from head to toe. Good thing Dodge had had his shaggy brown hair trimmed and boots buffed. OMEGA undercover operatives tended more toward comfort than spit and polish when in the field. Rejoining the air force, even temporarily, had called for some spiffing up.
Yarboro was only one of three people who’d been read in on the real reason for Dodge’s sudden appearance at F. E. Warren. Everyone else had been fed the cover story. The colonel wasn’t happy about having an outsider foisted on him, though. Even one with Major Sloan Hamilton’s military and civilian credentials.
“Before you make contact with Major Petrovna,” he said brusquely, “I want to make sure you understand who you’re up against.”
Yarboro lifted a typed sheet and skimmed down the page. A career missileer who’d worked his way up from launch officer to commander of the world’s most sophisticated ICBM force, he targeted the salient items with pinpoint accuracy.
“Born, Bryansk. Age 33. Widowed. One child. Attended the Gagarin Air Force Academy. Holds advanced degrees in both math and astrophysics.”
That would strike a cord with the colonel, Dodge guessed. Yarboro had earned a doctorate from MIT in astrophysics himself.
“She pulled a tour as a relatively junior officer at strike-force headquarters in Moscow, then commanded a SS-18 squadron.”
Those accomplishments didn’t exactly endear her to either Dodge or the colonel. The missile officers assigned to the 90th spent twenty-four hours at a stretch some eighty feet below the ground, locked behind eight-ton blast doors while they played a deadly game of chicken with their Russian counterparts. The cold war might have ended for the rest of the world. It hadn’t cooled more than a few degrees for the men and women charged with the nerve-twisting task of nuclear deterrence.
“Petrovna spent the past four years at various staff jobs,” Yarboro continued, “including two with the research-and-development directorate. Word is that Colonel Zacharov, head of Russian military intelligence, handpicked her to head this special team because of her expertise.”
Dodge kept silent. He knew Petrovna’s background as well as the colonel did. There was a reason Yarboro was reiterating her credentials. Probably had to do with the fact that Washington had sent Dodge in to bird-dog her instead of using one of the locals.
“When you meet Petrovna and her team at the airport this afternoon, you’ll bring her by here for a courtesy call,” Yarboro instructed. “Tom Jordan, our treaty compliance officer, will conduct the orientation briefing at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning. He’s lined up additional escorts to take care of the other two team members.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yarboro leaned forward, his eyes intent. “This is the first inspection under the new START treaty. I don’t need to tell you how important it is.”
The new START.
The acronym didn’t quite fit, Dodge thought cynically, since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty just signed by the presidents of the U.S. and the Russian Federation was the third treaty by that name. Each iteration had led to a reduction of nuclear war heads and strategic delivery systems, but the two superpowers still fielded some fifteen hundred nuclear warheads each.
“The top dogs on both sides will be watching,” Yarboro warned. “We don’t want any screwups.”
Dodge didn’t remind him that was why the president had tapped OMEGA to send someone in.
“No, sir.”
“Just get the Russians where they need to go, when they need to go. And make sure they observe the inspection protocol.” Yarboro thumped a thick binder sitting on the side of his desk. “I assume you’ve read it.”
Yeah, he’d read it. Its title was as mind-numbing as its dozens of chapters.
Protocol to the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms
The document covered everything from the on-site verification of active nuclear assets to the disposal of warheads taken out of service. Then there was the section labeled Escort Officer Duties, with separate tabs for housing, transportation, meals, clothing, handling of equipment and contacts with the media. The damned volume had taken most of four hours to get through.
“According to the protocol, I’m supposed to do everything but wipe the major’s nose,” Dodge commented.
“You do that, too, if necessary.”
Looked to be a fun couple of weeks, he mused, as the colonel continued.
“I
