Troika | Page 4

of the docks. The canisters were lifted out of the speedboat onto the deck of a freighter with Kuwaiti markings. The men in the boat released the fore and aft lines and sped back to the Egyptian coast. They moved quietly past the border once more, re-entered Eilat, moored the speed boat at the Institute's slip and returned to their quarters in town.
SEVASTOPOL BREEDER REACTOR
SEVASTOPOL, CRIMEA
5 November
0120 Hours
The Sevastopol Breeder Reactor Installation guard shack was barely warmed by the inadequate kerosene heater. A horn blared short, peremptory blasts, summoning the soldiers to their duties outside the shack.
Glumly, the guards went out into the late night cold. A truck from the Soviet Nuclear Research Institute had pulled up to the gate. The driver and his helper showed their passes and photo identity cards. The guards waved them into the installation and returned to the shack.
The two men in the truck wore civilian clothes. The wind, blowing off the Black Sea, sent a penetrating chill through their clothing. Both men shivered as they moved the truck to the side door of the unmarked warehouse. The driver, impatient, honked several times. The door opened.
The occupants of the truck got out and opened the center doors of the vehicle. A soldier, wearing a heavy pullover sweater, rolled a dolly out of the warehouse and lifted two canisters into the truck. Each had been freshly stenciled with the international nuclear material logo.
No one spoke. The soldier in the sweater gave a mocking half-salute to his comrades in the truck as they closed the doors and moved the truck back toward the main gate. The guards, recognizing them, waved them on without checking the cargo.
Once outside the facility, the men put on their caps and jackets, which were standard Red Army winter issue. They removed the Simpferopol symbol from the truck, replacing them with the markings for commissary at the Sevastopol army barracks. The men drove the truck to the loading wharf where they unloaded their cargo at a small pier at the end of the docks, then drove back to the barracks.
Almost immediately, a rubber dinghy pulled along side the pier. The crew took the canisters and rowed quietly into the channel which would lead them southeast to the small Turkish town just across the Bosphorus from Istanbul.
In the darkness, the dinghy moved across the Black Sea. About two hours out to sea, a searchlight suddenly played on the dinghy.
"Heave to and identify yourself!"
The oarsmen lifted their oars from the water; one of the men stood.
"We're Navy frogmen on a training exercise. You're welcome to check us out!"
He lifted his arms showing a packet of papers in an oilskin envelope. A sailor reached down from the patrol boat and took the envelope. He passed it on to an officer who had just come to the rail. Opening the envelope, the young officer studied the papers and passed them back to the men in the dinghy.
"Khorosho," he grunted. "Go ahead, but frankly, I wouldn't want you guys on a sabotage mission. You're too easy to find." Calling to the helmsman to return to the original course, he continued on his patrol.
"That was damn close. I thought we were cleared all the way out of the area," one of oarsmen whispered hoarsely.
His comrade replied, "Ah, the guy's probably on his first patrol as commanding officer. Don't worry, we're clear now. We should rendezvous with the others in about two hours."
They rowed silently and steadily until they came to a point just inside the Turkish waters. There they rested on their oars and waited. Finally, a yellow blinker came on and off in a 2-4-4 pattern. The men in the dinghy replied with a 4-4-2 pattern using a flashlight with a similar yellow lens. A large deep-water ship came into view. A ladder was tossed over the side of the ship along with a rope. The men in the dinghy tied the cargo to the rope. One man reached down and pulled the dinghy's inflation plug. The small craft was designed to sink when the plug was pulled. Then he climbed the ladder to the deck.
The dinghy was left bobbing in the ship's wake. It capsized before it was completely deflated, and drifted slowly back into Russian waters. In the darkness, no one on the freighter noticed.
On deck, the oarsmen stripped off their wet-suits and went below for a hot meal. The contraband was stowed in a hold under piles of sheepskins The Turkish ship was bound for Port Jebel Ali, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
MACLEAN, VIRGINIA
CIA Headquarters
30 October
1000 Hours
Henry Lyons Wheatland, Deputy Director, Special Services Section, Central Intelligence Agency, broke the seal on his "eyes-only" in-basket., Wheatland separated the file folders into several small neat stacks, each identified by color-coded numbers on its upper right hand corner. One