His good-humored denial hung suspended and Bill Ryan’s face settled slowly like coffee dregs. Without further comment Ryan said, “Come on inside, getting chilly out here,” and slid the glass door open. Sand scraped in the aluminum track.
When Forrester crossed the weatherstrip he heard a phone begin to ring with shrill demand. “That’s for me,” Ryan said and hurried by, leaving him to close the door.
Alice was sitting up straight with careful attention to her balance; when she reached for her glass she took a long time to get her fingers around it, and when she lifted it, it did not follow a straight course toward her lips.
Forrester stopped beside Ronnie’s chair. She gave him an upturned questioning smile and he nodded in reply: it was time to go and he did not sit down. Ryan had turned his back to the room and had been speaking inaudibly into the telephone. Now he hung up and came about, and made a face. “I don’t know what was so important he had to call at this time of night. Pete Chandler.” He was scowling at Alice.
Alice’s smile changed slightly but she did not speak and after a little while Ryan shifted to Forrester. “My chief of security. It seems you’ve got friends in the young generation. Some university kids had a meeting and there was some talk about showing support for your anti-Phaeton plank by having a little sit-in on the runway.”
“On the runway?”
“Yeah. Sometimes these kids don’t think ahead too good. I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen what a human body looks like after it’s been exposed to a few seconds’ worth of jet exhaust. Nothing much left but cinders.”
“I gather they didn’t get that far.”
“No. Six or eight of them showed up at the gate and Pete told the guards not to let them in. They sat down on the road outside the gate and he wanted to know whether to call the cops and have them removed. I told him to let them sit there. It’s a wide pavement, the cars can steer around them. They’ll get tired and hungry after a while and go home. Why make an incident out of it?”
“Smart,” Forrester said. “Not everybody shows that kind of restraint.”
“Pete wanted to call out the cops and beat some heads,” Ryan said. “He’s a bit of a flag-waver. I suppose it’s a good thing he did call me first.”
Alice said, “The little bastards deserve a few lumps. Who do they think it is that protects them so they can have the freedom to sit down in the middle of the road?”
There was no point in trying to explain to her the contradiction in her statement; she was drunk and belligerent, her eyes had lost focus. Forrester cleared his throat and said it was time to be going. Ryan went with them to the door; Alice didn’t get up from her chair. She waved and said something vague and Ryan came outside and said to Ronnie, “I’m sorry about that.”
“We all get under the weather sometimes,” she said politely.
Ryan frowned into space briefly before he remembered his joviality; he put a grin on his face and pumped Forrester’s hand. “Bring this little lady back with you next time you come, buddy. She does light up the place.”
“They’re nice people, really, but they seem to have made an awful mess of it, don’t they?”
He said, “I get the feeling that marriage is all burned out. It’s a shame.”
They drove toward the gate and when they turned into the approach road Forrester could see the kids cross-legged on the pavement beyond the guard post. Two helmeted AP’s were keeping an eye on them. A white city patrol car with the gold Tucson Police stripe down its sides was parked on the far side but the officers were only sitting inside watching. When Forrester braked at the guard post, he saw the big KARZ-TV mobile news van approaching from Twenty-second Street; he extinguished the speedometer panel lights to reduce the illumination within the car.
Ronnie said, “Aren’t you going to talk to them?”
“Who? The television truck or the kids?”
“The kids, of course. They’re out here on your account.”
“I can’t do that now.” He drove past the kids with his face averted; the KARZ-TV truck was drawing up and the two city cops were getting out of their car, wise enough to know that if the kids intended to make a scene they would most likely do it when they had television coverage.
A block away Forrester began to accelerate. “You think I copped out.”
“Shouldn’t you have talked to them?”
“With the TV people hanging on every word?”
“I thought you wanted publicity.”
“Not that kind. What kind of grass-roots support do you think I’d get if I gave the impression I was encouraging the lunatic fringe?”
“Lunatic fringe? They’re only good-hearted kids and they’re honestly concerned about the issues.”
“In politics realities don’t count—you have to work with appearances. You have to disavow the support of the extremist groups whether you happen to agree with them or not. Guilt by association, don’t you see? I can’t afford to be identified with a bunch of picketing kids unless I know more about them. They’re supporting my side of the Phaeton question but for all I know those six or eight kids back there are card-carrying Weathermen or Maoist pamphleteers. Not knowing who they are, I can’t afford to associate myself with them. Now if they’re still there tomorrow we can run a check on them and if they turn out to be harmless and well-intentioned I can set something up and go out there and have myself photographed shaking hands with them. But you can’t go into that kind of thing blind.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
He drove west and north, dog-legging along the boulevards. “If I take you home you’ll be stuck without your car. It’s not gallant but I think I’ll drop myself off at the hotel and let you drive yourself home.”
“Of course. You’ve had a long day.”
She was sitting back, tired and relaxed; she appeared less tense than she had earlier. He felt a quiet sense of easy intimacy and risked a question: “What about that dinner for two we promised ourselves?”
“When?”
“Tomorrow?”
“I was planning to drive up to the Catalinas tomorrow. Painting. I usually don’t get back from my expeditions in time for dinner—I pack sandwiches and a thermos.”
“During the week, then?”
She hesitated. “All right.”
“You’re nervous, aren’t you? Why?”
They passed a jammed parking lot beside a big low stucco night spot. The neon sign had a few dead letters: ATOM C BAR & GRIL E—DINE & D NCE—LIVE MUSIC FRI & SAT NITES. The lettering was outlined by the neon shape of a Titan missile.
Ronnie said, “It sounds childish, I suppose, but I just don’t want to let it get to be intense. I don’t want to get to a point where I can even suspect I’m leading you on. Right now I don’t need any complications in my life.”
“Maybe you’re making too much of it. I like your company, Ronnie, but I haven’t suggested building a fence around you.”
She laughed. “That’s bold enough.”
“Monday night, then. How about it?”
She gave in. “All right, Alan.”
It pleased him absurdly—that she called him by name.
He drove into the city along East Broadway’s sputtering fizz of neon. Low-down-payment car lots, franchise eateries. An Air Force Phantom jet went over at low altitude with a racket like the sound of ripping canvas, and pickup trucks driven by men in cowboy hats waited at the red traffic lights gunning their souped-up mills. University kids crowded into the beer joints eight to a car, hoping their forged age cards would be acceptable to tolerant bartenders.
His father had maintained a permanent suite in the Pioneer and Forrester still kept it. The hotel was busy with a Hollywood crowd, a film crew making a Western on location in the nearby hills. They were on the sidewalk, a pack of them, half drunk and loud. Forrester stood smiling until Ronnie slid across the seat under the wheel and drove away with a casual wave.
Forrester went up to the seventh floor in the
elevator and down the long wide corridor with its muffling carpet. In the suite he found the bed turned down and a cut-crystal bottle of whiskey waiting for him with an ice bucket. He had a drink and showered and when he came out of the steamed-up bath room the phone was ringing.
It was Ronnie. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“I’m still up. What’s the matter?”
She sounded angry. “I just had a call from Frank Shattuck’s secretary. She’s been trying to reach us all night.”
“To cancel the appointment tomorrow?”
“Three guesses why. It seems he’s been taken suddenly busy. Called away to a conference in Los Angeles or some such lie. What’ll you bet he’s out on the Country Club links big as life tomorrow morning?”
“Never mind, Ronnie. Don’t let it get your goat. I’ll get to him sometime during the week—it’s not urgent.”
“The longer you let it wait, the longer he’ll have to sew up his mind tight against you,” she said. “Shattuck Industries swings a strong lobby in Washington, Alan.”
“So do I. Thanks for your concern, Ronnie, but it’s not the end of the world.”
“I’d like to strangle the smug fool.”
“It’s all right. It’ll give me a chance to get out to the ranch for the day. You wouldn’t want to come along, would you? We’ve got some magnificent scenery up there, fine for painting”
“I know. I was there once or twice during the campaign.”
“How about it, then?”
“Well—all right. Of course. Thanks for inviting me. Shall I pick you up? It’ll save you renting a car.”
“Fine. Is seven too early?”
“I usually get away even earlier—I don’t like to waste the daylight.”
“Six-thirty, then.”
“Good,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night, Ronnie. Sleep well.” When he cradled the phone he kept his hand on it, as if to retain the thread of contact with her.
He switched off the light and lay back and grew drowsy with a constraining ennui, the listlessness that followed a day of long travel across time zones. Somewhere in the ensuing run of time, between wakefulness and sleep, a vivid picture came into his mind—Angie in the garden, picking insects off leaves, crushing them between finger and thumb. She had loved the garden in Washington; it had been her place of retreat, her center of revitalization. He remembered the look of her sleeping face on the pillow, the weight of her breasts warm with love; when his thoughts strayed to Ronnie it was with a start of guilt that brought him awake. Oh, hell, he thought crankily, chastising himself, and then the phone rang again and it was Top Spode. “I’m at National Airport. Trumble’s taking the night plane to Tucson and he’s got the goodies in his lap. You going to be in town tomorrow?”
“I’ll be at the ranch most of the day.”
“All right, I’ll reach you when there’s something to report.”
“Wrap it up as fast as you can, Top, because I’ve got another chore for you.”
“Tucson or Washington?”
“Tucson. We’re going to test the nation’s security.” Forrester said it dryly and his smile was one-sided.
“Now that sounds like fun,” Top said, and rang off. Forrester rolled over on his shoulder and exhaustion lowered him into a warm pool of sleep.
Chapter Four
The great iron doors swung open slowly and the dark Chaika limousine rolled out of the courtyard of Lubianka Tiurma where Rykov had just completed his regular morning tour of inspection. Behind the limousine the iron doors swung closed with a solid noise that echoed the metallic clangings of the several underground levels of dungeons inside. The chauffeur was armed and a silent bodyguard shared the rear seat with Rykov; the interior curtains were half-drawn across the double thickness of bulletproof glass in the small windows. The route took them past the Bolshoi Theatre and Sverdlov Square and there was a very thin morning traffic of Moskviches, Pobedas and Volgas on the boulevard. Rykov’s limousine kept to the center lane, reserved for official vehicles only, and he encountered no delays.
In Revolution Square a girl Intourist guide was lecturing to a thick-bundled coagulation of determined foreign tourists. The pavements were crowded with pedestrians on their way to work. Many of the men wore uniforms—civil servants, most of them; every Muscovite wanted to wear a uniform.
At Arbatskaya Square Rykov climbed out to walk the rest of the way. The slow-moving Chaika accompanied him. The possibility of assassination was one which Rykov accepted without qualms, but sensible precautions were not out of order and the bodyguard car stayed close.
Rykov’s footsteps crunched the snowy cobblestones with an uneven rhythm broken by the thudding of his cane, for he had a bad leg now, the result of the unpublicized crash-landing of an Aeroflot jetliner six years before. The pronounced limp added a fine touch to his sinister appearance and by implying constant pain, enhanced his reputation for stoic fortitude. Now that he had worked his way up to a position where he gave more orders than he took it was gratifying to have members of the ruling troika inquire solicitously after his health.
He walked through the wide Arbat Boulevard past an elderly woman sweeping snow off the sidewalk. She wore a scarf over her head, not against the cold but because it was traditionally immodest for a peasant woman not to wear a scarf tied under her chin. The woman bowed with a gesture of obeisance; she did not smile, because she knew who Viktor Rykov was. So did at least ten million other Russians and several thousand foreign intelligence people.
He was a long way, not only in time and distance, from his birthplace in the Circassian mountains of Georgia.
When the October Revolution had stripped them of their lands his kulak parents had moved down to Tiflis, a city of mosques and bazaars, smugglers and vice, and Viktor Rykov had learned the devious texts of intrigue and deceit. In 1938 Beria’s secret police had recruited him to spy on international black marketeers in the Crimea; Rykov had organized a cell of informants—an underground within the underworld—and his unique achievements had brought him to Moscow as a Control in 1940.
In 1941 at Smolensk he had been attached to the Fourth Bureau and posted out to the west to infiltrate the Abwehr. At Moscow against Von Bock, and at Leningrad, he had done superb work: it had been one of his agents, in a Wehrmacht uniform, who had walked into Guderian’s Panzer headquarters and brought out the detailed plans for the siege of Moscow.
Rykov had shown a genius for training Russians to look and act and think like Germans. There had been decorations and promotions and the transfer to the Far East: in August 1945 Rykov’s deep-cover seedlings in Hirohito’s crumbling empire had paralyzed Japanese matériél transport during the brief and bitter Soviet blitzkrieg of northeast Asia. From 1946 to 1953 Rykov had controlled Soviet networks in China, both in the Kuomintang and in the People’s Republic. By 1953 he had completed the construction of the Amergrad camp at Kolkhoz Tselino and within eighteen months its graduates had begun seeding into America. Then Khrushchev had cemented his authority, Tolubchev had been retired, and Rykov had stepped into power in the Arbat.
Winter gray misted the city. A youth passed Rykov, one of the new upstart generation in peasant valenki boots and a sulky frown and a cotton-padded jacket. The young ones wanted everything given to them and it was not pleasant to speculate what would become of the world when these young nihilists took it over.
In time history always upstaged the hard-handed pioneers, found them redundant and superseded them with suave men of greater finesse and sophistication but lesser gut courage—the squeamish, effete, decadent ones.
Pioneers became forgotten men and these young soft ones listened to revanchist Nazism on the Voice of America and read the samizdat drivel that circulated underground: they had memories even shorter than their years, they had not lived through the war, they had never suffered, and now they found it all dull—the Revolution was almost sixty years ago and to them it was history, boring. There was no longer exci
tement or danger in being a Communist. They did the proper things but they did them dutifully with the knowledge that fathers were responsible for the politics of their sons. They joined the October Society at seven and the Young Communist League of Komsomol at fourteen and learned to pay lip service to the goal of perfecting the working people’s socialist alliance. They wrote drably for, Komsomolskaya Pravda and massed their voices in uninspired rhetoric against those who challenged the national virtue and virility but all the time they wanted soft bourgeois comforts and they thought of their elders with contempt as the “uncles.”
Rykov had no children and he was glad of it.
He limped past the Lenin Library and turned into the wide side street. A suite of offices in one of the Kremlin towers had been assigned to him for official purposes but he rarely set foot in it because he had no taste for bootlicking and here in this huge gray unmarked building in the Arbat district a kilometer west of Red Square no one’s boots but Rykov’s own were licked.
It was a graceless mausoleum, drab and cold. It housed the nerve center of the Soviet intelligence system; to neighbor agencies it was known as the Organs. A small sign in plain Russian characters hung inside the entrance hall:
K omitet
G osudarstvennoi
B esopastnosti
The hall guards were big men, well armed and fully trained in unarmed-combat techniques. Rykov returned their salutes perfunctorily and went back through the building with his cane tapping disrhythmically. He waited at the lifts and heard the building’s quiet thrummings.
These lower floors were filled with code and cipher rooms and the offices of Control officers commanding subsidiary networks of field agents. KGB was modern and efficient and heavy-budgeted, and it was huge: for each of the 200,000 employees of the American CIA there were twenty KGB agents; most of them were paid or blackmailed informants, not full staff members, but still the cadre of professionals was more than a million in number. In these offices their activities were coordinated and analyzed by banks of Minsk-32 computers, and the distillations of millions of words of daily reports were delivered each day to the desk of Viktor Rykov because Rykov was the supreme commander of this greatest secret army in the world. In his sixty-second year Rykov was heir to the mantle of Lavrenti Beria.
Deep Cover Page 8