Angel Eyes (64 page)

Tori's face was pale. "I never suspected a thing. My God, all along Bernard never retired from the Mall. He had his own agenda hidden away from even you, the director he appointed in his place."

"You're quite right," Russell said. "Hidden agendas are Bernard's stock-in-trade."

Tori stared at him. "How long have you known?"

Russell gave her a thin smile. "Not long enough."

"I can't wait to bury the bastard!"

"Tori, it's no good hating Bernard. He is what he is, a man totally obsessed with freeing enslaved peoples."

"I wish there was some way I could help the nationalist movement inside Russia," Tori said. "It's Bernard's methods I disagree with, not his goals."

"So often said." Russell kept her close. "But it just goes to prove that Bernard's as human as the next person. He's made mistakes-grave ones, like allowing Hitasura to run his own supercoke smuggling operation under Mail auspices."

Tori turned away, looked out at the clouds streaming by below them.

"Russ, how can you defend him after what he's done to us? He took our trust and our love, and in return manipulated us."

"I'll tell you something," Russell said. "Bernard is a master of using all the resources available to him. At first, that's what I thought he was doing here. But now I'm not so sure. You see, he made a point of telling me how angry he was not only that Ariel Solares was murdered, but that it was done with such a bang we heard it all the way back in Virginia. He said they wanted to embarrass us, that there could only be one response to that." Russell made sure she was listening. "But Bernard knew all along who had ordered Ariel's death: Hitasura. 'Go for the jugular,' Bernard said. Jesus, he wasn't kidding. He made sure that every step of the way it was my idea to bring you back, but I could see how he planted that idea, how he manipulated conversations so that I would take that extra step to ensure that, one way or another, you'd come back to the Mall. I didn't know why then, but I do now: he knew that you were the only one who could take care of your old friend Hitasura for him.''

"Go on."

"But Bernard also must have known that for you to get close enough to Hitasura to terminate him, you'd have to have learned enough to implicate him-Bernard. So you were a two-edged sword, Tori. On the one hand, you were the only agent skilled enough to bring Hitasura down. On the other, you would come away knowing enough to send Bernard away for a very long time."

"That's why Bernard ordered you to terminate me!"

Russell shook his head. "You're still not thinking clearly. I said Bernard told me to terminate you under certain circumstances. He didn't order me to do it, and further, he knew that I couldn't possibly hurt you. You see, Bernard-who knows everyone's weak spots-knew before I did that I was in love with you."

Tori said nothing for a time. At last she put her head into her hands. "I can't think. There's too much-"

"This is your time in the corrida, Tori.'' And when she lifted her head to look at him, Russell said, "The bull is so close upon you you can feel his hot breath.''

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

Russell took her hands in his. "This is the time when you must think for yourself. Think not as Bernard wants you to do, but for yourself."

She knew he was right in everything he said. And yet a stubborn, obtuse part of her was still committed to hating Bernard Godwin for his betrayal of her trust.

She said, "Whether he asked you, told you, or ordered you to terminate me, makes no difference. Bernard still wanted me dead in order to protect himself.''

"No, Tori." Russell caught her gaze with his own. "If Bernard wanted you terminated, he certainly wouldn't have asked me to do it. I'm a desk jockey, remember? And he knew I was personally involved with you. I'd be just about the last person he'd contract with to make the hit."

"That makes sense," Tori said. "Then why did he tell you to terminate me?"

"Well, I've been thinking about that," Russell said. "What he said was so wildly out of character that it was as if he was trying to tell me something. It took me a while to figure out the puzzle Bernard had set put for me, but I think I have it now. It was as if Bernard was saying to me, I've given you this picture, what's wrong with it?

"He knew that Hitasura had turned bad on him-Hitasura's murder of Ariel Solares was a major break in discipline. Bernard may not have known that Hitasura was behind the supercoke, but he sure as hell knew that he suddenly had a rogue agent on his hands-a rogue agent, I might add, who reported only to Bernard. Bernard knew he had to terminate Hitasura as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

''He knew he couldn't tell you openly about Hitasura because you wouldn't believe him, and he wouldn't have told me for fear I would tell you. That would have made you walk straight away from us. Bernard knew you needed to discover the truth about Hitasura for yourself, but he was warning me that things were not as they seemed in the hope that I would stay one step ahead of you. You see, Bernard was still concerned by your volatility. He set me up to be your watchdog just as, years ago, he set you up to be Hitasura's watchdog."

Tori gave an ironic laugh. "And now Bernard has given me the means to exact my revenge on him for manipulating me for so many years."

Russell nodded. "Now you understand that Bernard knew he was doing just that when he manipulated me into bringing you back to the Mall. It says something about the man that he trusts you-and me-with that power over him."

Tori thought about that for a long time, then she nodded. "I guess I still can't believe that I could have been so wrong about Hitasura. He used Bernard as Bernard was using us and everyone else around him. We have confirmation from Hitasura himself that Bernard never wanted Ariel murdered. And it's true that Bernard had no conscious knowledge of the supercocaine Hitasura was selling. It will just about kill him when he learns to what extent he's been involved in that."

Russell said nothing.

Tori exhaled slowly. "There is an Argentine saying: 'The devil can see at midnight, but revenge is blind even in the noonday sun.' "

Russell knew what she meant. She was moving away from the emotionally volatile adolescent filled with weaknesses that Bernard Godwin recognized and exploited. She was becoming more whole and, therefore, more powerful with each breath she took. She had met her bull head on, and was riding it, facing herself at last, instead of turning away from herself to face death over and over.

"Look, we're not trying to excuse Bernard, are we?" Tori said at last.

"I think you'll have to make up your own mind about that," Russell said. "I'll only remind you of what you said just a few minutes ago. You told me that you wished there was some way for you to help the nationalist movement inside Russia. Bernard's shown you the way."

''You think we should help him?'' Tori said. ''Bernard's been selling nuclear devices of unknown and unproven design to White Star, a nationalist underground movement that might or might not be controlled by the KGB itself."

"You've just given the best reason I can think of for helping Bernard. Those miniature hafnium-damped nuclear devices could easily be the means to a revolution inside the USSR or the spark that ignites a world war.

"White Star has become the nexus point of this assignment. Either way, we have to penetrate White Star and find out whether Bernard has become a saint or a fool."

''Now there's a hell of an idea.''

Russell pointed out the plane's Perspex window. "Welcome to hell. Tori," he said. "We've just crossed over into Soviet airspace."

TWELVE

MOSCOW/STAR TOWN

"We've lost him."

"Lost him?" Mars Volkov clenched his fists. "This man-this traitor-has killed four of my men. He has kidnapped a helpless psychotic from her bed in a state institution. And all you can tell me is that you lost him? How is that, Captain?"

Anatoly Nikolev, captain of the Eleventh Division of the KGB Border Guards, temporarily under the command of the chief of Department N, shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench.

He and Mars were sitting in the otherwise empty stands of the baseball field at Moscow State University. They were watching the burgeoning national team work out. Beyond the stadium were the green-tiered Lenin Hills, where the vast Mosfilms sound stages and some of the city's finest old villas-Mars had one-were gradually being surrounded by squat modern-style multiple residences.

In the opposite direction was the stolid, ugly facade of the university dormitory and student facilities building, one of the many constant reminders in Moscow of Stalin's indelible influence on this stolid society.

Captain Nikolev looked resplendent in his gray uniform with the red accents. There were medals on his chest, but he knew from experience that Mars Volkov was not impressed by past accomplishments. The man lived entirely in the present.

Captain Nikolev loved this place, especially a beautiful spot not a hundred yards from here where, on a promontory overlooking the river, it was said that Napoleon gazed down upon Moscow on September 14, 1812, before marching into the city.

"I can never come here," Mars said, interrupting Captain Nikolev's thoughts, "without thinking of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky. Now there was a great man. I see his bust in front of the university and I feel a great pride in being Russian."

Of course, Captain Nikolev thought with some cynicism. I come to the Lenin Hills and am filled with history. What fills Comrade Volkov? Rhapsodic thoughts of a non-Euclidian geometrist.

Mars said, "I understand that the last tank units have been drawn up. Which means we're ready to cross the mythical borders into Lithuania and Latvia."

"True enough," Captain Nikolev said. "It's a daring plan, but one which is also timeworn. It worked in Poland decades ago, so it should work now.''

"Have you reservations, Captain?"

"I am not a military tactician," Nikolev said neutrally, "so I have no worthwhile opinion on such matters.''

Mars regarded him with some surprise. "Yet you are a military man. Such action should set your blood on fire."

Nikolev grunted. "I think the time is long past for the heyday of the military man.''

"I know," Mars said with some amusement. "A commission as an officer in the Roman legion would have suited you more."

Captain Nikolev watched the baseball players at their strenuous calisthenics, and thought glumly that the military should adopt such daily exercises.

''We lost Bondasenko's White Star contact at the institution in Arkhangelskoe, as well," he said when he felt he could no longer prolong the inevitable. "It was our ill fortune to have Bondasenko show up just as we were about to get the man. Apparently, Bondasenko was using the institution where he had so successfully hidden his daughter as a meet to exchange intelligence with other members of White Star."

"Very clever," Mars said. "I must remember to commend him before I put a bullet through the back of his head.''

Captain Nikolev said, "I think we can assume that Bondasenko is White Star's commander. We have gained that information, at least. It's not an inconsiderable bit of intelligence."

Mars grunted his assent. "All right," he said now. "Bondasenko's gone to ground. But he can't stay hidden indefinitely. He's going to have to surface sometime, and, Captain, when he does, I want his head snapped in a rat trap. Is that clear?"

"Yes, comrade."

Mars and Captain Nikolev lapsed into silence. They watched a pair of thin, chain-smoking professors from the university circulate among the young members of the national baseball team. They were not the coaches; the best coaches were still, to Mars's shame, mainly Cubans, who had many years of invaluable baseball experience. These chain-smoking professors were sports specialists in eye-hand coordination and musculature conditioning. They had determined that quickness of reflexes, not endurance, was the most desirable trait to breed into the new generation of ballplayers that the Soviet Union hoped would dominate world play in the 1990s.

But perhaps it would take longer to field a world-class team than had first been anticipated, since endurance was a trait already bred into the young Russians graduating from the extant state-funded sports academies. But Professor Kutateladze, who spoke eloquently and at length of the "technology of building a baseball player," had promised that the young men coming out of his baseball school would be different. Mars hoped he would be right. He always had been in the past.

Mars said, "Have you as yet located Miss Ponomareva?"

"No."

Where has Irina got to? Mars asked himself. She was not at work or at home. She had not been at Valeri's and she wasn't with the Hero. Captain Nikolev had checked these places himself. Irina might continue to be very useful to me now, he thought. My surveillance has shown that she's been the closest to Valeri Denysovich over the past several months. If anyone might know where he was holed up, she might.

Well, Mars thought, stirring, perhaps it is time I took a more active role in finding out where she is.

It was very quiet when Mars entered the Hero's fortress in Star Town. He came across Tatiana first. She was folding the Hero's newly laundered shirts into a neat pile. The homey smells of soap and bleach were in the air.

"Comrade," she said when she saw him. Her wide-apart gray eyes were neutral. She did not stop her folding.

"Is he alone?" Mars asked brusquely.

"Lara is with him," Tatiana said. "You left orders that one of us should be with him at all times now.''

"Yes," Mars said. "Of course."

He sat on a steel folding chair, watched her dispiritedly while she worked.

Tatiana cocked her head. "You look like you could use a drink, comrade," she said. "Can I bring you something?"

"Have you any pepper vodka?"

"I'll see." She went out of the room, returned in a moment with a pair of thick water tumblers and a bottle. She grinned, hoisting the bottle. "I didn't think a shot would be sufficient."