James P. Hogan (20 page)

“Earnshaw.” Luchenko’s voice was unusually clipped. “I may have some information on your colleague.” McCain stopped and looked inquiringly. “But first, of course, there is a price.”

“You never mentioned anything about that,” McCain said.

“I must have forgotten. Nothing is free here. I’m sure that being American, you will understand.”

“You expect me to pay you for doing your job?”

“It is the custom here.”

“No, thanks.”

McCain turned in the direction he had been heading, but Maiskevik moved to block the way. “If you choose not to avail yourself of the service, that’s up to you,” Luchenko said. “But I have done my part. It must still be paid for.”

Maiskevik shoved McCain roughly in the chest with the flat of his hand to stop him, and stood stroking the knuckles of his clenched fist, “Everybody in here pays their taxes,” he growled. It was one of the few occasions on which McCain had heard Maiskevik speak. The message was clear enough. On the fringe of his awareness, McCain registered that the rest of the billet had suddenly gone quiet. He heard somebody come out from the washroom behind him and stop.

McCain looked quizzically at Luchenko. “I thought you said we could always discuss these things reasonab —” His left hand shot the grain into Maiskevik’s face, and as the Bulgarian blinked reflexively McCain’s other hand swept the mug up off the table to follow with the tea. Maiskevik bellowed and staggered back, clawing at his scalded face. McCain kicked hard into his crotch, then seized the lapels of his jacket with both hands to pull the Bulgarian forward onto a murderous head-butt full in the face. Maiskevik fell back against the end of Borowski and Taugin’s bunk, his eyes glazed and blood gushing from his ruined nose. McCain kicked his feet away, and he crashed into a sitting position on the floor. Incredibly, he was trying to get up again. McCain grabbed a fistful of hair to jerk Maiskevik’s head back and delivered a straight-fingered jab to the exposed throat. Maiskevik gagged and crumpled’ to sit with his head lolling to one side, with rivulets of blood from his nose running down the front of his clothes.

It had been too fast and violent for anyone else to react.

Luchenko was gaping from his chair across the table, Nolan was staring ashen-faced from behind, while a few feet from McCain, Borowski was still frozen in the act of turning from his locker. Forcing himself to be calm externally despite the adrenaline charge pulsing through his body. McCain replaced the mug on the table. “I’ve just filed for an exemption,” he told Luchenko. Then he stepped over Maiskevik’s legs to continue on his way. The others who had come forward from the other sections of the billet parted to let him through. He stopped halfway to pour himself a cup of tea at the center table, and carried it back to his bunk.

Slowly the billet came back to life behind him. At the far end, Luchenko was still sitting, stunned, while Nolan, Borowski, and a couple of others hauled Maiskevik to his feet and steered him into the washroom.

Scanlon was leaning forward on the edge of his bunk when McCain sat down opposite him. “Here,” he said, holding out his flask. “A little drop o’ the hard stuff will do you more good than that.”

McCain took a long swig and nodded. “Thanks.” He handed back the flask and then sipped his tea.

Scanlon regarded him curiously for a while. Then he took a sip from the flask himself and looked across at McCain again. “So, Mr. Earnshaw,” he said at last, “what kind of a school of journalism was it, I’m wondering, that they sent you to, now?”

Inside the Government Building at Turgenev, General Protbornov and the three other men with him watched a replay of the incident as it had been recorded through a wide-angle lens built into one of the ceiling lights in billet B-3. The title on the thick, red-bound folder lying in front of Protbornov read,
MC
CAIN
,
LEWIS
H
.,
U
.
S
.
UNIFIED
DEFENSE
INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY
.
ABSOLUTE
TOP
SECRET
.

Sergei Kirilikhov, from the Party’s Central Committee, nodded tight-lipped and pivoted his chair to face away from the screen. “You were right after all, General,” he said to Protbornov. “He reacted just as your people predicted he would. My compliments.”

Protbornov patted the folder on the table affectionately. “When he was a teenager in California, there was a gang of bullies at the school he attended who liked to terrorize other students, especially Hispanics. Well, one day they made the mistake of picking on a new intake batch who turned out to be the children of Nicaraguan mountain guerilla fighters recently arrived in the country, and almost got themselves killed. The affair made a deep impression on McCain. Later, when he was with NATO, he hospitalized a would-be mugger in Berlin. What we have just seen was fully in character.”

Maxim Sepelyan, from the Ministry of Defense, stroked his chin dubiously. “You, ah… you don’t think that this man could be too headstrong – too impulsive, perhaps?”

Protbornov shook his head. “We have studied his motivational psychology intensely. Despite what you just saw, he is not a person primarily disposed toward violence. He only resorts to force when compelled to in self-defense. His ideological convictions reflect the same principle. When given a choice, he bases his relationships on reason, persuasion, and patience. But he is defiant, and he has a strong sense of loyalty to his beliefs. Those are exactly the qualities we want.”

The other man present, General Andrei Tolomachuk, from the KGB’s Ninth Directorate, gestured toward the screen from Protbornov’s other side. “I presume that what we saw there was genuine. The Bulgarian wasn’t acting under instructions?”

“Definitely not,” Protbornov said. “That was all quite genuine, I assure you. Part of the objective was to test that McCain’s ability and determination are as we have assessed them.”

The four exchanged inquiring looks. “Very well, I am satisfied,” Kirilikhov pronounced. Tolomachuk agreed. Sepelyan thought for a moment longer, then nodded. “When I get back to Moscow, I will advise that the next phase of the operation proceed as planned,” Kirilikhov said.

Protbornov looked pleased. “So the countdown remains on schedule. We’re still talking about a November seventh D-day.” Kirilikhov nodded.

“Four months from now,” Sepelyan mused. “The waiting will make it seem like a long time.”

“It’s the centenary,” General Tolomachuk said. “We’ve been waiting a hundred years. What are four more months compared to a hundred years?”

“What are they compared to owning the world?” Protbornov asked.

Maiskevik was taken to the infirmary the next morning for treatment following an “accident,” and Luchenko was summoned to a talk with Major Bachayvin, the block commandant. An hour later two guards appeared at the billet to collect Maiskevik’s things, and by lunchtime the prevailing opinion was that he wouldn’t be coming back. No official reason was given. Luchenko reappeared later and had nothing to say on the matter except that two replacements would be corning to B-3 in Maiskevik’s place. McCain carried on in the metal-working shop through the afternoon, expecting to be hauled away at any time, but by the end of the shift nothing had happened. He could only conclude that the management, for reasons best known to themselves, were going along with the accident story officially. Maybe Luchenko was on the take to a greater degree than he cared to make known to his bosses, McCain reflected. Or maybe they were all part of it, too. Either way, it could add up to possible opportunities to be exploited.

When McCain arrived back at the billet, Nolan brought him a note from the mail pouch that a messenger delivered every day to Luchenko, It advised that the book McCain had reserved was being held in the library. McCain hadn’t reserved any book. He went to the library and was handed a gaudy paperback entitled A Hero’s Sacrifice. It was one of the standard pulp inspirational pieces churned out for the masses by Party hacks, and carried a cover picture of a standard Soviet workaholic hero, muscles taut beneath bronzed skin, steely-eyed, and complete with hard hat and jackhammer, shown against a background of cranes, bulldozers, and an oil refinery under construction.

McCain took the book to the general compound and shielded himself among a group of prisoners placing bets on a Siberian variation of the shell game before he ruffled through the pages. The slip of paper that dropped into his hand read:

SUBJECT
OF
QUERY
WAS
DETAINED
IN
SOLI
-

TARY
AT
SECURITY
HQ
TURGENEV
UP
TO
FOUR

DAYS
AGO
FOR
CONTINUING
INTERROGATION
.

CONDITION
GOOD
.
NO
GROUNDS
FOR
CON
-

CERN
.
HAS
RECENTLY
BEEN
MOVED
TO
ZA
-

MORK
,
RESTRICTED
SECTION
,
BLOCK
D
.

The message also included instructions for McCain to follow to reestablish contact, should he need further information on anything. McCain wasn’t sure whether he felt reassured or not, although, according to Scanlon, the source had proved consistently reliable in the past. Reputation was everything in any good business, Scanlon had reminded him.

He saw Andreyev approaching as he was about to begin walking back across the compound, and stopped to wait for the older man to join him. “Have you met the two new arrivals yet?” Andreyev asked. He had a thick woolen cardigan beneath his jacket and swung his arms across his body as he spoke, as if it were cold. McCain could picture him in a black overcoat and fur hat in a Moscow street scene.

“No, I’ve been in the library,” McCain said, “So they’re here already, eh?”

“And straight out of training, if I ever saw KGB before. You’ve stirred things up properly, you know. They don’t trust you an inch now. A bodyguard for Luchenko, that’s what they are. Mungabo has christened them King and Kong.”

“It seems strange,” McCain commented, mainly to see what Andreyov would say. “I’d have thought they’d have shipped me out.”

“Oh, they couldn’t leave Maiskevik there, could they? Not any longer – after what happened. He’s lost face…. Wouldn’t be able to carry the same weight any more, in the billet. Not after what happened.”

“And I don’t get put away for a while to cool down?”

“No, they couldn’t do that, could they? Not if they want to pretend it was an accident.”

“That’s my point. Why would they pretend that?”

“Who knows why they do things?”

McCain gestured at the compound in general. “So, is it likely to be everybody’s gossip for the evening?”

“No, it won’t be spread around.”

“How come?”

“It’s best.”

They began walking slowly toward the door into the throughway between A and B Blocks. Andreyov turned his head to peer at McCain, as if weighing something in his mind. Finally he said, “You seem to be a man of strong opinions – strong impressions of things.”

McCain thrust his hands into his pockets. “Some things, maybe. I don’t know…. What did you have in mind?”

“The things you argue with Nolan about. You have strong ideals.”

“I never really thought of myself as an idealist.”

“Principles, then?”

“A few, maybe.”

Andreyov hesitated, then said, “I admire that. Everybody who is anything worthwhile has to admire that. But, you know, it troubles me that you should think so badly of Russia.” Before McCain could reply, he went on, “It isn’t everything you think. We are proud of our country, as you are of yours. Like you, we worked hard and we suffered to make it what it is. And we have transformed our Motherland from backwardness to one of the world’s strongest nations, and extended its influence everywhere – out into space, too. There are many positive things that you should remember, things we have achieved. Creative things. Our history, our arts… Russia has produced men of words and ideas that have swept through the civilized world as have few others. Russians have brought glory to music and ballet, and at one time to painting and architecture…. And hospitality and friendship! Do you know what the educated Russian values more than anything else? Good friends and stimulating conversation. There is nothing anywhere else in the world to match the loyalty of Russians who are close friends. You have to spend an evening at home with an apartment full of; them, when the talking goes on over food and vodka until long into the night. Or I am on my own and the telephone rings at three in the morning, and it’s my friend Viktor who I have known for forty years and he tells me, ‘Yevgenni, I have problems and I need somebody to talk to. I am coming over.’ Or it is Oleg, who says, ‘I have been thinking about what you said last week. We must discuss it.’ So what do I do? I put the water on to boil for some tea. Where would you find that in New York? Oh, no, there I must get up and go to work because I have to be ‘successful’ all the time, or make money, money, or please the boss whose ass I want to kick, but then he fires me from my job and I sleep in the street. Is it not so?”

They emerged into Gorky Street and turned to follow it for a short distance to re-enter the B Block mess area through its front entrance. “No, you misunderstand,” McCain said. “I don’t have any quarrel with the Russian people. I respect everything the Russian tradition stands for – all the things you said. But the present political system is something alien to all that. That’s not the real Russia.”