The Red Dove

But to survive he needed a coup that would dwarf the Arab misadventure into insignificance.

He needed a spectacular.

It was at times like this, he thought as he turned restlessly in the bed, that you needed someone beside you. Someone to bring warmth to icy calculation. Someone to share.

But at least I’ve been honest with myself, he thought as dawn began to creep into the bedroom.

The two computer print-outs were flown from Washington to Los Angeles within six hours of Reynolds’ call and brought by automobile along Coastal Highway 101 to the ranch.

The first was a routine assessment; the second and more interesting document was the result of an intensive and prolonged exchange between operator and computer.

The assessment was based on the investigation Reynolds had authorised on Nicolay Talin in August 1971, which had been revised annually.

Reynolds read the assessment first, sitting in the sunlit bedroom; from outside he could hear the lowing of cattle.

NICOLAY LEONID TALIN.

BORN 10 OCT. 1950, NEAR KHABAROVSK, EASTERN SIBERIA.

ATTENDED WORK—POLYTECHNICAL SCHOOL 14 AT AGE 7 (NORMAL SCHOOL STARTING AGE IN SU). BY GRADE 2 SINGLED OUT AS POSSESSING EXCEPTIONAL ACADEMIC POTENTIAL.

AT AGE SEVEN JOINED LITTLE OCTOBRISTS, AT AGE NINE YOUNG PIONEERS. GROUP LEADER REPORTED TO PARTY COMMITTEE THAT TALIN WAS BOTH HIGHLY INTELLIGENT AND QUOTE UNUSUALLY ADVENTUROUS UNQUOTE. LATTER POSSIBLE EUPHEMISM FOR EARLY SYMPTOMS OF REBELLION.

EMOTIONALLY AFFECTED AT AGE 12 BY DEATH OF FATHER THROUGH RADIATION SICKNESS CONTRACTED IN COBALT MINE NEAR YAKUTSK REPUTEDLY COLDEST PLACE ON EARTH. MOVED WITH MOTHER TO NOVOSIBIRSK AND ENTERED FOR ELITE PHYS-MAT SCHOOL NO. 5.

The climatic observation, Reynolds reflected, pin-pointed the fallibility of computers: the feed-in. The operator, probably working on a sweltering day in Washington, had been unable to resist this totally irrelevant morsel of information about Yakutsk.

AT SCHOOL SCHOLASTIC ABILITIES CONFIRMED AS OUTSTANDING. EARLY COMPUTER ASSESSMENT CHANNELLED POTENTIAL TOWARDS AVIATION. THIS SUBSEQUENTLY AMENDED TO AEROSPACE. PLACE RESERVED MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY.

Early computer! As if the sophisticated brain machine spewing out Talin’s life was sneering.

CAREER ENDANGERED BY OUTBREAKS OF DEFIANCE DURING YOUNG PIONEER INDOCTRINATION INTO PARTY DOGMA, LENINISM ETCETERA. SAVED BY SYSTEM SO RIGID THAT, HAVING FILED SUBJECT AS FUTURE HERO, IT COULD NOT QUESTION ITS OWN JUDGEMENT.

SYSTEM CONCENTRATED ON WIDOWED MOTHER, BRIBED THROUGH USUAL CHANNELS AVAILABLE TO SOVIET ELITE, TO REASON WITH SON. PLOY LARGELY BUT TEMPORARILY BRACKET SEE LATER UNBRACKET SUCCESSFUL.

Why the hell did this computer write commas but not brackets and quotes?

AT AGE 16 JOINED KOMSOMOL BRACKET YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE UNBRACKET. LATER DEPARTED NOVOSIBIRSK FOR MOSCOW. AT UNIVERSITY AND DURING KOMSOMOL ACTIVITIES REBELLIOUS SPIRIT AGAIN NOTICED. IN CONVERSATION REPEATED DOUBTS EXPRESSED BY YOUNG PEOPLE IN ’50s FOLLOWING KRUSHCHEV’S DENUNCIATION OF STALIN AT TWENTIETH PARTY CONGRESS.

Put an S in front of Talin’s name, Reynolds thought, and there was Stalin.

APPROACH MADE AT THIS STAGE BY OLEG SEDOV COSMONAUT AND OPERATIVE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DIRECTORATE OF FIRST CHIEF DIRECTORATE OF KGB WORKING IN CONJUNCTION WITH DOSAAF RESPONSIBLE FOR INDOCTRINATION OF YOUTH BEFORE MILITARY SERVICE.

UNDER INFLUENCE OF SEDOV MARKED CHANGE NOTED IN OUTWARD ATTITUDE OF TALIN. RELATIONSHIP SEEMS TO HAVE PROGRESSED BEYOND MENTOR-PUPIL NORM. POSSIBILITY OF HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES INVESTIGATED BUT REJECTED IN RELATION TO TALIN ON GROUNDS OF HIS UNDOUBTED HETEROSEXUALITY.

FROM UNIVERSITY SUBJECT TRANSFERRED TO NEW YURI GAGARIN COSMONAUT TRAINING CENTRE AT STAR TOWN, ZVEDNY GORODOK, IN EASTERN SUBURBS OF MOSCOW. THERE TO TYURATAM, BETTER KNOWN IN WEST AS BAYKONUR COSMODROME, IN KAZAKHSTAN.

INTENSIVE TRAINING CONTINUED IN PREPARATION FOR SPACE SPECTACULAR….

Was Washington inhabited totally by movie buffs?

…INVOLVING SOYUZ AND SALYUT CRAFT. AT SAME TIME ROMANCE FIT FOR FUTURE HERO ARRANGED WITH DANCER AT BOLSHOI DESTINED TO BECOME PRIMA BALLERINA. LUCKILY FOR SOVIETS TALIN AND GIRL, SONYA BRAGINA, WHOLE-HEARTEDLY ENDORSED ARRANGEMENT PRESUMABLY ASSUMING IT HAD BEEN FORTUITOUS.

TALIN’S SPACE FLIGHT CONSUMMATELY SUCCESSFUL. SUBJECT ELEVATED INTO SOVIET ELITE COMPLETE WITH RED PASSBOOK. BECAME YOUNGEST HERO OF SOVIET UNION IN HISTORY. ACCOMPANIED BY OLEG SEDOV PILOTED FIRST SOVIET UNION SHUTTLE DOVE 1 IN MAY 1983.

CONCLUSION:

TALIN REPRESENTS POSSIBLE MATERIAL FOR MANIPULATION. BEHAVIOURAL PATTERN INDICATES CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF REPRESSED RECALCITRANCE. FACT THAT SUBJECT IS IDEALIST SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE THAT SOVIETS HAVE NOT INVOLVED HIM IN AGGRESSIVE ASPECTS OF SPACE PROJECTS. PRINCIPAL OBSTACLE THAT WOULD HAVE TO BE OVERCOME – UNDOUBTED PATRIOTISM OF SUBJECT.

Reynolds called the kitchen and asked for coffee. Through the window he could see the President; he had abandoned his axe and was digging a posthole. Beside him stood his wife in jeans and shirt carrying a basket of flowers. Reynolds envied them their togetherness.

The cook brought the coffee. He drank it black and began to read the second print-out.

The document wasn’t as crisp as the Talin assessment. Questions and answers hadn’t yet been synthesised because Reynolds had emphasised that the priority was speed. But the direction of the conversation between man and machine was easy enough to follow.

Relentlessly, the operator had picked the computer’s brains to find an agent capable of subverting a young Hero of the Soviet Union. Into its electronic intelligence he had fed Talin’s age, background, environment, sexual inclinations, physical appearance, aerospace career details, ambitions, pastimes, IQ, character estimate …

The operator had then fed his machine with the specialised qualifications needed by the CIA agent. Knowledge of Russian, ability to mix – here the computer had been very much taken with the word simpatico – unswerving devotion to country, fatalistic attitude to death. …

The computer had then responded with the shattering conclusion – NO SUCH AGENT AVAILABLE.

Which was hardly surprising, Reynolds brooded. What sort of agent was it who would be able to travel undetected through the Soviet Union to Leninsk, known in Russia as Rocket City, where cosmonauts working at the Tyuratam space centre lived, and single-handedly persuade a Hero to defect?

But the operator hadn’t given up. The conversation between master and machine – or was it the other way round? – had continued.

Reynolds guessed where it was leading. He should have known all along. He stopped reading and opened an envelope marked PHOTOGRAPHS WITH CARE that had accompanied the print-outs.

There was Nicolay Talin descending the steps from Dove 1; thick blond hair brushed back in timeless style, keen features, slight cleft in the chin. Triumphant – and yet the eyes seemed to be searching for someone, something. A Viking, Reynolds thought. No, a Siberian.

He looked at the second photograph and came face to face with a man who had once briefly obsessed him. Had the mug shot been taken before or after that obsession? After. The experience had drawn lines from nose to mouth, pouched the eyes, changed the expression.

Nevertheless, there were still traces of youthful appeal in the face staring accusingly at him. The moustache that made him look like a cop, the aggressive features, the slant of the brown eyes that softened the aggression. Also discernible was the intellect that had earned him a summa cum laude BS in physics at Rice University, Houston. The casual observer might also suspect that the face in the photograph had been supported by an athlete’s body, and he would have been right – both the Dallas Cowboys and the Los Angeles Rams had tried to sign him as a quarterback only to discover that, for him, sport was only a diversion from his real purpose.

And that purpose had been to fly. First with the USAF, graduating to F–15 Eagles, but always viewing the Earth’s atmosphere as a step ladder to space. He had subsequently been selected for training with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and that selection had been a mistake.

Reynolds returned to the print-out, speed-reading because he knew the details and he didn’t enjoy them, returning finally to the abridged service biography.

MASSEY, ROBERT S. (B. 14 APRIL 1939). PILOT USAF. SELECTED NASA DEC. ’65. COMMAND MODULE PILOT FOR APOLLO MOON LANDING 1972. TRANSFERRED SHUTTLE EXPERIMENTS, DESTINED FOR FIRST TEST OF ORBITER 101 SHUTTLE IN 1977 BUT WITHDREW: DIVORCED. INACTIVE.

Inactive! A euphemism of the space age.

But it was all there in the extended print-out. Every requirement for the plan that had been evolving in Reynolds’ brain since the computer had told him to forget trying to find a trained agent. Right down to aerospace experience, right down to ‘fatalistic attitude to death’ …

Now all he had to do was persuade Massey. All? After what I did to him? Sometimes Reynolds wondered at his own icy optimism.

He locked the print-outs and photographs in his attaché case and left the room. Outside the President was leaning against a fence drinking root beer and talking to his wife.

Reynolds told him that he was leaving. ‘But I’ll be back for dinner Saturday,’ he said.