Andrei Voronin stood at the entrance to the nuclear weapons bunker, surveying its contents. Moments earlier, he’d been ordered to conduct another inventory, immediately, of the nuclear warhead variant of the Kalibr missile, and this time by serial number. The previous inventory of all ordnance at Gadzhiyevo Naval Base had been conducted by weapon type and quantity, and had revealed no discrepancies. All Kalibr missiles, both conventional and nuclear variants, had been accounted for, so he wondered what a serial number audit would prove.
Supposedly, twenty of the nuclear variant were unaccounted for, but there was no chance that was true. However, he had his orders and watched as two men went down the rows of Kalibr missiles, clipboard in hand, taking independent inventories, checking off each serial number.
When they were finished, Voronin approached both men, who handed him their clipboards. Both inventories matched; every nuclear-warhead-armed missile was accounted for.
As he stood between two rows of Kalibr missiles, he noticed a slight difference between the missiles on his left, versus those on his right. The white paint on the warhead section of one set of missiles was shinier than the others. It was probably just a different production lot, he figured. But just to be sure, he decided to count each version. He went down one side, adding up the quantity of shinier missiles, stopping suddenly when it totaled twenty.
He turned to the two ordnance handlers. “Remove the nose cone from this missile,” he said, pointing to the nearest shiny version.
The necessary tools were brought out and the nose cone removed. Voronin stared in stunned silence at the guidance and control section of a Kalibr missile armed with a conventional warhead.
With rising trepidation, he ordered the nose cones removed from every Kalibr missile in the stowage facility, both conventional and nuclear variants. Perhaps the twenty nuclear-warhead-armed Kalibr missiles had somehow ended up in the conventional storage bunker, but he already knew the answer.
He ordered the nearest worker to bring him the ordnance loadout manifest. It was soon in his hand and he went down the list, his finger stopping below an entry.
Twenty Kalibr missiles had been loaded aboard Kazan.