James P. Hogan (34 page)

“It’s an honest, straightforward, goodwill gesture,” Randal said across at Foleda. “Somebody has to start trusting somebody.”

Foleda didn’t reply, but stared hard at the screen, trying in his mind to reconcile what he had just heard with the most recent trends to be distilled from the various intelligence sources that his people tapped, Deliveries of fuel and supplies to Soviet naval bases had been increasing significantly. The Warsaw Pact nations had announced plans in the weeks ahead for military exercises to be held in Eastern Europe and Siberia that would involve large-scale troop and armor movements. Soviet aircraft had been doing a lot of practice flying lately. Fourteen hospitals near major cities had installed emergency generating equipment in the last three months alone. A KGB general had taken charge of the Soviet civil-defense organization. No single item stood out as grounds for anything conclusive, but taken together they added up to precisely the kind of situation that made intelligence analysts nervous.

But the signs didn’t seem to anticipate the same level of activity extending into the longer term. The Soviet military units undergoing mobilization, for example, were not being issued with winter clothing and equipment; the quantities of spare parts being ordered from factories were not consistent with demand requirements extending far into the future. It seemed that whatever they were hatching would happen soon, and was expected to be over with quickly. At a time of acute first-strike apprehensiveness everywhere, such a thought was blood-chilling. And now here was a specific date, less than ten weeks away, slap in the middle of the time frame that seemed to be indicated. Suddenly Foleda felt the sickening certainty that he could already look at a calendar and put his finger on doomsday.

“… you’d think that some people wanted a war.” He realized that Randal had been saying something.

“What are you saying we should do, disarm unilaterally?” he asked, snapping himself back to the present.

“Why not? If we did, they would. Then the problem would have gone away. That’s simple enough, surely.”

“But suppose you were wrong, and they didn’t,” Foleda said, his voice still numb. “Would you be willing to run
that
risk? Which would you see as greater?”

Before the exchange could proceed any further, a flashing symbol appeared in the bottom corner of the screen to indicate an incoming call. Randal touched a button on the handpad. ‘Foledas’. This is Randal.”

“Hello, Randal, this is Barbara Haynes, calling Bernard,” a woman’s voice said from the unit. “Is he around?”

“Hi, Barb. Sure – one moment.”

“I’ll take it up in the kitchen,” Foleda said, relieved at the chance to extricate himself. Randal redirected the call, erased the stored bulletin that they had just watched, and settled back to see what else had come in on the news.

Barbara was calling from a house that the CIA owned on some tree-covered acres in Maryland, “We collected Mrs. Jones and took her to the farm. Everything’s fine. Shall I confirm that you’ll be coming out tomorrow to talk to her?” It meant that Anita Dorkas had arrived from London, been smuggled through the airport despite attempts by Soviet officials to intervene, and was now installed at the safe house.

“Good work,” Foleda said, “You bet I’ll be there.”

The room had a large marble fireplace, a molded plaster ceiling, and high windows with rich, heavy drapes, looking out over lawns and a rose garden. It was furnished traditionally with a slender-legged Georgian sideboard, davenport, side tables, and several settees and wing-backed chairs. A grand piano stood at the far end, inside the arched entrance-way from the hall. Anita Dorkas was sitting at one end of the long central table, with Foleda across the corner from her on one side and Barbara on the other. Harry Meech, also from the department, sat at the other end with a portable screenpad, surrounded by files and notes. Gerald Kehrn from the Defense Department was pacing around agitatedly, first studying the pictures on the walls, now picking up a vase, then stooping to examine the china in one of the glass-fronted cabinets.

“And that was enough to make you so certain you’d been discovered?” Foleda said again.

“It wasn’t just that. It was a combination of several things,” Anita replied. She sounded tired, but not resentful. This kind of thing was necessary and not unexpected. “The behavior of my superior at the embassy that day. The fact that they chose a time when Enriko was away. And when he told me what Shepanov had said – about the woman that my ex-husband had taken up with being arrested – the implications were obvious. Igor – my ex-husband, Professor Dyashkin – would have come under suspicion immediately. We had both been involved in underground dissident activities, and for all I knew he might have been arrested, too, by then. Either way, it was only a matter of time before they got onto me. I was afraid that if I went in to work the next morning, I would only come out again under arrest, en route for Russia.”

“You just walked out,” Foleda said. “Not a word to your husband? You didn’t say anything? You’ve never seen him since. Isn’t that a little odd?”

“I’ve already explained: I used him. He was head-to-toe KGB. There was never anything personal between us as far as I was concerned. I had no qualms in that respect.”

“How did he feel about it?”

“As far as I could tell, he saw ours as a normal marriage.”

“How would you describe his attitude to your relationship?”

Anita hesitated and searched for words. “He was… well, considerate enough in our dealings, I suppose…. not ungenerous. We had ups and downs occasionally, but on the whole we got along all right. You could have described it as a friendly accommodation, not exactly romantic…”

“Was it successful sexually?”

Anita nodded. “Yes, I’d say so.”

“But you’ve just said he was pure KGB,” Foleda pointed out. “Earlier, you painted a pretty clear picture for us of your ideological convictions. They’re very strong. Wasn’t there any basic emotional conflict here? A paradox, maybe?”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” Anita said.

“Didn’t it bother you to go to bed with a dedicated officer of the KGB?” Barbara asked her.

Anita looked at her squarely, then at Foleda. “No. He was quite good, if you must know. And it is fun. Why not make the best of it?”

“Did he have other women, too?”

“If he did now and then, it wouldn’t have surprised me.”

“Would the thought have troubled you?”

“No.”

“How about yourself?”

“Never among the embassy staff. I couldn’t afford to risk compromising my own work.”

“But elsewhere? Your illegal contacts in London?”

“There was one, yes.”

“You didn’t contact him the night you decided to get away – before you called the SIS number?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It simply wasn’t that strong a thing. I needed help, not friendship.”

Foleda nodded, satisfied, while Meech scribbled furiously at the far end of the table and tapped buttons on his screenpad. It would have been easy for Anita to have tried harder to justify her action by depicting herself as having had a rougher time from her husband, and putting more blame on him for the problem. What she had said didn’t have the ring of a cover story about it.

There was a short pause. Anita refilled her water glass from the pitcher on the table, took a sip, and lit a cigarette.

“Getting back to Professor Dyashkin,” Kehrn said over his shoulder from across the room. “You and he were married when, did you say?”

“August third, 2003,” Anita replied.

“And divorced?…”

“2011. I forget the precise date.”

“In Moscow.”

“Yes.”

“Which was after he’d begun his affair with Olga…”

“Olga Oshkadov. Yes.”

“But before he moved to Sokhotsk.”

“Where?” Anita frowned. “I’ve never heard of that place.”

Kehrn made a pretense of forgetfulness. “Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry. You didn’t keep in touch, did you?” Meech nodded to himself unconsciously as he recalled earlier answers onto the screen for comparison. Kehrn came back to the table and rummaged through some papers. “Presumably you have heard of
Valentina Tereshkova
, though,” he said.

Anita shrugged lightly, “The space colony? Why, of course. In fact, wasn’t it in the news yesterday?”

“Does it hold any special significance for you?”

“No, none. Should it?”

“Does it hold any significance for Professor Dyashkin? Do you connect him with it in any way? Did he ever talk about it?”

Anita could only shake her head, “If he was connected with it somehow, I was never aware. He never mentioned it in any special sense – only the casual references that anyone might make concerning things that appear in the news.”

“And you said that you didn’t know he’d moved to Siberia?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I knew he’d moved to Siberia. I didn’t know exactly where. Was it to the place you mentioned a moment ago?” The interview went on in a similar vein until it was time for lunch. Kehrn went through with Anita to the table that the house orderlies had set in the dining room, where two CIA officers who would be questioning Anita further in the afternoon were due to meet them. Foleda announced that he would go for a stroll around the pond at the rear of the house to feed the ducks and get some air before joining the party, Barbara accompanied him.

“What do you make of it?” he asked her.

“I still think she’s genuine. In fact, I’m more convinced than I was in London.”

“Uh-huh. What else?”

“Well, if Professor Dyashkin is also mixed up with the Friday Club, and his ladyfriend Olga has been arrested, that maybe answers one of the big questions we’ve been asking; Why does he want to defect? He can feel the heat closing in on him, and wants an option for an out.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it.” There was a note to Foleda’s voice that said perhaps it was too obvious. He stopped as a flotilla of ducks arrived from across the pond and waited a few feet out from the bank for the pieces of breadrolls he’d picked up from the plates that had come in with the coffee earlier. “Then, how’s this for a long shot?” he said. “Let’s suppose that Olga was moved up to
Tereshkova
for some reason, and that she’s inside the prison camp there. We already know that Dyashkin is at the receiving end of the Blueprint transmissions. See my point?”

Barbara nodded. “It’s a good bet that Olga’s the person at the other.”

“That’s the way it looks to me.” Foleda broke another roll and tossed the pieces into the water.

“How can we find out for sure?”

“Easily – by asking Dyashkin. He must know who it is he’s talking to.”

“Would he tell us?”

“Why shouldn’t he? He confirmed that Lew McCain and the Bryce girl are up there. And besides, he’s sweating and he might want us to get him out, so he’s not of a mind to refuse favors,” Foleda turned back from the pond. “Now let’s string all those facts together. We’ve never been able to discover how he works his end of the Blueprint line, but we know he’s got some way of sending messages up to Mermaid.

Now, we’re pretty certain his contact up there is Olga, and Olga was arrested for anti-Soviet activities. Now let’s assume that Olga’s inside the same place that Lew McCain and Bryce are in… and bearing in mind that we already possess a link between us and Dyashkin… See the possibilities?”

Barbara shook her head and blinked at the audacity of what Foleda was suggesting. “Then, maybe we could use his line to get through to our own people up there,” she completed.

“A neat idea, eh? Who knows what kind of use we might find for a connection like that?” Foleda threw the last of the bread. “Well, the ducks look happy. Let’s go back and get some lunch ourselves.”

The secret belowdecks workshop became known as “the Crypt.” By the time McCain, Rashazzi, and Haber got there, Haber was breathing heavily from the exertions of the Journey, which was still strenuous, even with the rope ladder that Rashazzi and McCain had attached at the light-fixture panel. The worst part was getting down from the pipe-supporting frame underneath the billet floor. Now that they could examine and neutralize the security circuits from the rear, what they needed was an easier way in. They had identified several out-of-the-way places in the Core where entry might be possible, which would have the added advantage of making the Crypt available during the day. Besides giving them more productive time, this would provide relief from the exhausting loss of sleep that was beginning to affect all of them.

By now the Crypt was powered and lit from a junction box that Rashazzi had tapped into, and had acquired a spacious workbench, boxes, storage racks, and a staggering assortment of tools, test equipment, instruments, electronic components, and jars of chemicals, gadgets, and parts, which the two scientist-thieves had materialized from a score of hiding holes that McCain had never suspected, and the whereabouts of which he still hadn’t the foggiest notion. The laser was at one end of the bench. Scanlon had managed to purloin a broken research model from the scrap heap at the university in Landausk, where he’d been working since bedframe production was suspended. It needed some replacement parts, which the two scientists said they could hand-make, and a new electronic control unit. In addition, a number of other contraptions and devices were at various stages of construction.

“Come this way, Lew,” Rashazzi said. “This is what we wanted to show you.” He beckoned McCain through into the space behind the bench, Haber followed, after collecting a notebook and some other items from the bench. Supported between two boxes was a shallow cylinder cut from one end of a drum about three feet across, containing six inches or so of water. The hole in the center was plugged, and a loop of stiff wire sticking up through the water from the plug formed a handle to pull it out. On the floor between the two boxes and underneath the cylinder was a bowl for the water to drain into. It seemed a very simple arrangement, and McCain could attach no significance to it. He waited curiously.

Haber had placed a meter rule across the dish with its edge above the center of the plug, and was waiting with a pencil and notebook. “Ready when you are,” he told Rashazzi.