Delta Green - [44]

At one time, the inspectors initialed sheets of paper placed near each inspection point. Now, however, since Polly Tang had devised the new electronic system, the inspection team members each keyed in their personal access code on a remote communications box, and the report went directly into the mainframe computer.

In the module on the end of Spoke Nine, Pearson said hello to the two technicians manning the controls of the nuclear reactor, then floated about the small space — the reactor occupied most of the sixty-foot-long module — and checked conduit, bulkhead seals, and the access log. Arguento surveyed the pertinent reactor readouts among the controls, monitors, and status lights on the complex console and went over the past day’s log with Navy Lieutenant Otis Rogers. When Pearson and Arguento had each completed their portion of the inspection, they keyed their codes into the computer system, then pressed the pad labeled “INSPECTION OKAY.”

The computer automatically assigned the date and time and recorded the information in its data banks, simultaneously updating the visual readouts in the Maintenance Office and the Command Center.

As Arguento opened the hatch into the spoke, the speaker on the communications panel on the bulkhead blared, “Colonel Pearson, are you there?”

She pulled herself close to the panel, “I’m right here, Donna.”

“We’ve got all kinds of classified data starting to come in for you.”

She looked at the clock on the panel. “It’ll be another hour before I’m finished. Anything pressing?”

“I can’t tell,” Amber said.

Arguento said, “I can finish the tour, Colonel.”

Pearson longed to dig into the fresh information, but shook her head. The station came first.

“In an hour, Donna”

An hour and twenty minutes passed before they completed checking the last civilian laboratory and residential spaces. In the far end of Module Six, contracted to Dow, she had to caution the three chemists about securing unattended lab equipment, but otherwise the inspection was routine.

By the time she got back to her office in the Command Center, Donna Amber had transferred all of the incoming data files to Pearson’s work station and she began scanning them immediately.

A CIA field agent in Berlin had located Yuri Pronnikov working incognito as a waiter in a relative’s restaurant, and that left Pearson with five suspected Mako pilots.

There were no more reports on the other possible pilots as yet, but Pearson was more interested in the names turned up by Brackman.

Shelepin, Pavel, and Druzhinin.

The first name had been one of hers, but the other two were new. Accompanying the names were the CIA dossiers on all three men.

In a separate batch of records, already translated from the Russian, were the old Soviet military records for the three. There was no source identifier on the copied records, and she supposed Brackman or Thorpe had been in touch with General Sheremetevo.

She spent over an hour reading through the extensive files, eliminating items that had been guesswork by the CIA and combining the factual items.

The three men had a number of things in common. They were all in their sixties; they had all held flag rank in the old Soviet military; they had all been staunch members of the Communist Party; they had all grown up together, professionally and politically.

And they had all departed Mother Russia hurriedly at the same time.

Pearson thought that was very interesting.

The details in their military records outlined the times they had been assigned to common commands, which was frequent, and the times they had been decorated or commended by superiors, many of whom were now doing hard time as a result of Commonwealth trials for traitorous activities. The resulting picture in Pearson’s mind was one of men tightly bonded by similar interests and pursuits.

It was not a hell of a lot of convincing evidence, of course.

Also interesting was the fact that Anatoly Shelepin had been assigned as Stavka liaison to the military intelligence directorate for clandestine activities, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye (GRU). He had been the paymaster for covert funds. The position not only gave him access to cash, but to military and political intelligence gathered from all over the world.

Sergei Pavel, also, had had the same opportunities for funds and information. As an assistant secretary in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, he had been in direct contact with foreign intelligence gathering. Within the First Chief Directorate, he had been assigned to Directorate K, foreign intelligence and security penetration, and had been especially active in the Sixth Department, which had been responsible for China, Vietnam, Kampuchea, and Korea.

Oleg Druzhinin was an ex-Red Air Force commander of fighter interceptor groups. He had been with Shelepin in Afghanistan, and Maslov had been assigned to both of them at one time or another.

Pearson liked what she was seeing. On her left console screen, she typed a new listing:

LEADERSHIP: Shelepin, Favel, Druzhinin