Orlov also found that daunting problems always seemed to make more sense after a short nap. During his last space flight, a joint mission with Bulgaria-- and the first three-cosmonaut flight since the crew of Soyuz II suffocated in their spacecraft-- Orlov and his two comrades had tried to dock their Soyuz ship with the Salyut 6 space station. When engine failure left the ship and the station on a collision course, mission control ordered Orlov to fire his backup rocket to return to earth immediately. Instead, he fired a short burst to back a safe distance away, shut off his headset, and rested for fifteen minutes-- to the dismay of his crew. Then he used the backup engine to effect the docking. Though there was no longer enough fuel in the backup rocket to return to earth, once inside the space station Orlov was able to troubleshoot the main engine, repair the faulty circuit, and salvage the mission… and the self-respect of the mission team at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Later, back on earth, Orlov was told the on-board echocardiograph had showed that his cardiovascular activity slowed and remained down after his rest. Thereafter, cosmonaut training included "power naps," though they didn't seem to work as well for other cosmonauts as they did for Orlov.

He never slept to escape what was happening in his life, though when Orlov was finally able to shut his eyes at 1:45 A.M., it felt good to file away the concerns of the moment. He was awakened at 2:51 when his assistant, Nina, buzzed to tell him he had a call from the Ministry of Defense. When Orlov got on, Marshal of Communications General David Ergashev informed him about the troops moving into Ukraine and asked the new Operations Center for help monitoring European communiqués about their activities. Stunned by the news and wondering if this was just a high-level test of the Center's capabilities-- why else wouldn't he have been told?-- Orlov passed the order to Radio Officer Yuri Marev.

Through fiber-optic links with satellite dish stations outside of St. Petersburg, and through their own special lines in the city's own telephone center, the Operations Center was designed to monitor all electronic communications between the field and the Defense Ministry. It was also capable of monitoring all types of communications in and out of the office of the Chief Marshal of Artillery, the Chief Marshal of the Air Force, and the Admiral of the Fleet. The Center's job was to make sure those lines of communication were not being monitored by outsiders. It could also be used as a centralized clearinghouse to disseminate information among other government agencies.

Or they could simply listen in.

Before hanging up with Marev, Orlov asked him to tap into the data coming into the Ministry of Defense from General Kosigan and the Chief Marshals' offices. Marev's answer caught him off guard.

"We're already doing that," Marev said. "Colonel Rossky ordered us to follow the troop movements."