Kissinger’s bassoon voice rumbled. “You should talk to Miller first, Mr. President, and separately, to clearly show American preeminence.”
Bob Haldeman piped in, “That’s the way we have it set up, sir.”
Nixon nodded. “What do we have to decide here today?”
Sam Phillips was the one to reply. “We don’t like the Soviets gaining any advantage in discoveries on the Moon, and this new rover of theirs is far more capable than any that NASA has landed. It could work for months or even years, surviving the cold of lunar nights with its polonium--210 internal heater. Once Miller has had a close look at what it’s doing and taken detailed pictures, we think he should disable it in a way that allows deniability. That needs to be done off camera and without the cosmonaut seeing. It needs to look like it was disabled by the blast of the Bulldog’s engine, for instance, rather than by deliberate action.”
He was looking into the eyes of each of the men around the table. “The Soviets are only in contact with their rover when their big antenna in Simferopol is facing the Moon, and that ends in about an hour. Miller has bolt cutters on board, and we have some other ideas that might work as well. But with this Council’s approval, Mr. President, by the time Apollo 18 blasts off the Moon tomorrow, Lunokhod will be dying, or dead.”
Nixon didn’t move, waiting for any dissenting voices. Silence.
He lifted his head to take a long look at Phillips, and then he nodded. “If you take no risks, you win no victories. Do it.”
Inside Bulldog, Svetlana was bending as far as the suit would allow so she could watch what Chad was doing outside through the window.
The voice from Houston had instructed her to wait, but Moscow had given clear instructions about retrieving a specific rock from Lunokhod. She stared at the rover on the horizon. How long would it take to walk that far? Could she trust the American to do what Moscow had asked?
No.
She’d studied how he’d climbed down the ladder. The hatch was wide open. But how would Houston react to her leaving the lander? If she could stay out of sight of the camera, how would they even know?
A thought occurred to her, and she studied the switches and circuit breakers in the cockpit. Her English was rudimentary, but a far--thinking high school teacher had forced her to learn the alphabet. She silently thanked her now as she sounded out the printed names, hunting for two specific letters and hoping their engineers had kept the labeling simple.
“Chyort!” she muttered. So many! Why hadn’t she paid closer attention to the switches he’d moved before going outside? She paused to picture exactly where his hands had moved.
She found a row labeled Comm and sounded it out. English was so confusing; was the “C” hard or soft? She tried saying both, and suddenly realized that it was probably short for “communications,” a technical English word she knew. Excitedly, she checked each of the breakers’ names in the sub-row below it.
And there it was, the last one on the right side. Exactly like she’d hoped.
TV.
“Televizor” in Russian. He had reached for that one. She rapidly checked the rest of the panels to be sure it was the only circuit breaker labeled that way. She looked back at it closely. It was a standard design, meaning she’d just have to squeeze it between her thumb and two forefingers and pull. It would pop out, unpowering the TV camera. Houston wouldn’t see her coming down the ladder.
But when to do it?
She looked back out the window, not seeing him. Blyad! Had he already headed for Lunokhod?
She twisted further and spotted movement on the far left. Chad was still near, unstowing something beside one of the lander’s legs. It had two dinner-plate-sized, fat rubber tires on it, and he was unfolding long, parallel handles out and locking them into place.
Tachka, she decided. A wheelbarrow. For carrying things like tools. And rocks. That meant he was almost ready.
She touched the gun in her pocket. So was she.
At his console in Simferopol, Gabdul moved his hand controller carefully. Director Chelomei in Moscow was watching Lunokhod’s video feed, and had demanded the best view he could give him; Gabdul was precisely turning the rover so its cameras were facing the Apollo lander, but without damaging the Ugol rock underneath.
There! That ought to do it. He stopped and looked at the slowly refreshing black-and-white still image to see if he’d gotten it right.
The metallic glint of the NASA ship was centered in the frame. “Otlichna,” he muttered in satisfaction. Perfect.
He leaned close to the screen. He could just make out a white blob by the legs of the lander. As each new image processed, the blob was in a different place. Spacewalker, he concluded. He watched several successive frames. The blob was slowly getting clearer and larger. One of the images caught a reflective glint off the helmet’s reflective coating. And now he’s headed our way.