by Thomas Craig
That very evening, shaving for a second time in order to appear at his most groomed here and now, he had watched his worried face in the mirror and wondered how people viewed his only son. Did they see, as vividly as he did, the weak chin, the full, loose lips, the pale, delicate skin? Did they see his wife, as he did?
No, of course not, he had reasoned; reasoned again now. They could not because they had never seen his wife. Not out here, not in Baikonur. Very few of the high command had met that quiet, mousy woman who hardly left fingerprints, never mind made an impression on anyone's memory.
And who had ruined his only son.
Dismiss—
Staring at the components of the laser weapon, he watched his son's image whirl away into the darkness in his head.
The following night the laser weapon would be lowered into the gaping cargo bay of the shuttle craft, the doors would close on it, the shuttle craft would be drawn out of the building on its short journey to join the booster stages at the launch site. There was nothing else. His son did not concern him — did not deserve his attention at this time.
Even the presence of Serov could not dim the moment, tarnish the hard glint of his pleasure. The GRU commandant was to his right, while to his left an army technician stood beside a television set mounted on a wheeled trolley. Its power lead trailed away through the small knot of aides and scientific staff and out of sight. On the television's screen, the earth glowed blue and white and green, hanging in the blackness of space. Africa lay green and brown beneath his glance.
Then the picture switched to another camera's view. The hold of the American shuttle craft, Atlantis. The picture seemed almost in black and white. In the center, two astronauts in pressure suits were working on a satellite they had rescued. They were attached to the hold by twining, snakelike cords. Rodin's fingers plucked at his lower lip. His gaze was intent, as if he were deciphering some complex puzzle. It was, however, anticipatory pleasure he experienced, not doubt or confusion.
In less than thirty-six hours' time, the Soviet shuttle would be launched into low earth orbit. Nothing could go wrong here, not with their schedule. Nothing must go wrong…
The express hoist at the launch pad needed repair. It would be used to place the shuttle craft atop the G-type booster, and now it had developed a hydraulic failure. It must be repaired. At once.
"Thirty-five hours, comrades," Rodin announced to their immediate attention. He disliked the word "comrades" — a Party word, not a military one; "gentlemen" would have fitted more easily. His eyes scanned them like some surveillance camera as his head turned once more to take in the details of the shuttle, which lay open like a gutted fish, beached on its massive transporter. The railway lines ran the length of the huge building and out into the arc-lit night. "Thirty-five hours." Power flowed like adrenaline. "The hoist is to be repaired before this craft moves from here. You have assured me it will be done."
White-coated civilians nodded, murmured again. Military aides confirmed with nodding heads, with shoulder boards and uniforms and medal ribbons. Rodin was satisfied, even though his gloved fingertips prickled with impatience. He nodded by way of reply "Good."
He turned to Serov. His son whirled back out of the darkness in his head. Why did he feel any necessity to explain to Serov? Why, why was he afraid of the man?
Because Serov had the kind of mind, stark and untroubled in its ruthless clarity, that might reach toward the final cleanness of an accident to Valery similar to that prescribed for his actor friend— and Rodin could not contemplate that thought. Guilt sprang unfamiliarly, and he hated the weakness and fear it aroused in him. He Would carry out his plan and get the boy away from Baikonur, away from Serov, back to Moscow and the academy — where he could begin to call upon favors and discretion. The boy could even stay with his mother.
He cleared his throat and said to Serov in a hard, quiet tone: Stavka requires assurances, Serov, concerning your missing technician. They've been in touch with me and specifically mentioned the Matter of security. You understand?"
Serov's face darkened at Rodin's challenging tone, but he merely said: "In two hours, comrade General, I shall be able to brief you on every aspect of security surrounding the — project. My people are updating everything at this moment."
"Good." Rodin smiled slightly at Serov's tight-lipped acquiescence.
Then the colonel hit back softly, sharply.
"We shall expect no further embarrassments from your son, comrade General. I approve your scheme to remove him to Moscow in a few hours' time."
"You approve?"
Serov continued as if Rodin had not spoken. 'The KGB are keeping the boy under discreet surveillance, but they have made no move — and they're not likely to."
"You people seem to have acted wisely, after all," Rodin replied, unable to eradicate a slight quiver from his words.
"Thank you, comrade General," Serov replied with evident irony.
Rodin turned his glance away from the GRU commandant, once more to the Raketoplan shuttle and the laser weapon's components. Light gleamed from the great shield of the main mirror. His body seemed filled with reposeful confidence. He saw the mirror, the tube, the shuttle, as extensions of his own authority, as if they were as vital to him, as much a part of him, as his limbs.
The others might, even now, change their minds. They could scrap Lightning even after it was launched. The shuttle's launch had to be on schedule, it must appear technically perfect, and it must coincide with the signing of that filthy, weak treaty in Geneva. Then they'd show their real power to the dodderers in the Kremlin. What was it Peter the Great had said, at the launching of a man-of-war in St. Petersburg? It is now our turn. You may happen even in our lifetime to put other civilized nations to the blush, and to carry the glory of the Russian name to the highest pitch. Yes, that was it. Petr Alekseevich, Peter the Great. With that treaty on the point of ratification, it was not easy to believe in sentiments as broad and certain as that — except for Lightning. Now he was poised on the edge of the great chasm of the next day and a half. After that, the defense minister, Stavka and their supporters in the Politburo, would have all the leverage they required to treble, even quadruple the budget for orbital weapon development. They would have the leverage to do anything, and he would have given it to them.
Lightning was their private tearing up of the treaty. After it, they could move forward, become the power both real and hidden. lightning promised a reincarnation of the army's waning power. No self-satisfaction could do justice to that thought. It was the arm twisted up behind the Politburo's back until it broke like a dry, old stick.
Images of violence and power coursed through Rodin like rough, heady wine.
"Let me come over," Priabin whispered, staring out of the window down toward the window of Valery Rodin's flat. Even without the aid of the glasses, he could see the livid bruising on the young mans face. "Let's talk face to face — this is ridiculous."
"I've locked and bolted the door."
Hashish and drink. He'd started again perhaps half an hour before Priabin had arrived. Rodin had come to the window at once, as soon as Priabin lifted the receiver. Through the glasses, his face had looked like that of a whipped and frightened animal. Alone in the dark, he had been suddenly, unstably grateful for the contact of Priabin's voice and his shadowy image in the window opposite. He had even raised one hand in what may have been a wave of recognition.
But he wouldn't open the door, wouldn't allow Priabin into the flat. It seemed as if Rodin had tricked him into coming; there were no revelations, no confidences, just this idle chatter, this need for company on the young man's part. A salve for the bruises his father's hands had inflicted.
The boy was desperate. Quietly, certainly desperate. But still unbroken. And Priabin could not operate with surgical precision down a telephone line on a figure glimpsed only at a distance. Frustration made him jumpy. Mikhail and Anatoly had retreated into a tense silence away behind him in the room'
s shadows. Katya was out the marshes and Dudin was on his way to join her. Kedrov the spy was in the bag. This boy was wasting his time.
"You're wasting my time," Priabin snapped. Mikhail murmured something he did not catch. "You hear me, Rodin?" he persisted.
"Am I?" Rodin replied breathily, with contempt.
"Why did you call me? What did you want?"
Priabin studied Rodin's figure. A joint between his fingers, a balloon of cognac in his hand. His body swaying slightly. There was music on in the room, Priabin could hear it mutedly. It seemed familiar and evocative, but he could not catch either tune or words.
"To talk."
"Last time we spoke you had nothing to say. What's changed- sweetheart?" There was a qualm of sympathy in his chest and stomach, but he ignored it, even though he could clearly see Rodin flinch at the insulting word. It was like a slap, turning his head quickly to one side. His body stopped swaying. He even raised his hand to his bruises. Priabin sensed instinct guiding him, but it was all but obscured by his frustrated anger. "What is it you want? You want to lodge a complaint against your assailant — is that it? Well? Who did it to you, then? Who was it?"
"You know who did it — your bastards were even watching! Don't be smart!" Rodin suddenly yelled into the telephone. It was a child's playground yell, half pain, half threat; self-pity, too. Priabin saw him swig violently at his glass, then wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. He puffed nervously at the crumpled cigarette. Priabin felt himself close to the young man, as if suspended on some window cleaner's hoist just outside the window where Rodin stood in his silk robe.
"Let's talk about Lightning, then, shall we?"
He could see fear ingrained like dirt on Rodin's face. As livid as the bruises. Rodin shook his head.
"No. Let's talk about Sacha." His narrow neck seemed stretched. Priabin bent for a moment to the glasses — damn it, he was attempting to break a man long-distance. It was all but impossible; he had to get into the room with Rodin.
"Why him?" he snapped back quickly, unsure as to whether or not professional instinct guided his response. 'The queer's dead after all."
"You sound just like my father!"
The two men in the room with him stirred at the tinny scream that even they could hear. Priabin winced with pain, knowing he had made an error.
"So, I'm just like your old man," he responded, his voice mocking. Anna dragged at his sleeve like an importunate child. He had not even noticed her memory entering the room. He felt hot, and guilty. Shaking his head — still bent to the glasses on their tripod, the receiver against his cheek — he continued brutally: "We've been through that, Rodin. You and your father. What's your father doing right now? What is he doing now?"
Have to watch his face, watch his face… Anna, leave me alone, he whispered into the darkness at the back of his mind. Not now, not now. She was there, of course, to tell him not to break Rodin, to understand him; to remind him of how alone Valery Rodin was, how desperate. Not now, Anna, not now.
Rodin's mouth was agape; then it closed to a cunning expression as if biting on something edible. Anna, Viktor… Viktor supplied his urgency, his unfeeling grip on the boy across the street. He couldn't let go, couldn't let Viktor down. It was why he was here— Anna and Viktor.
Revenge for Viktor was achievable. He could never avenge Anna's death upon the American pilot, Gant. Viktor would have to do.
"Just remember, Valery," he whispered into the receiver, "I'm more dangerous than you. I have a dead second-in-command on my conscience, not just a not very good actor who was your lover."
And he knew he had been right, that it was instinct guiding him, when Rodin screamed back: "He could have been a great actor!"
"Because he flattered you?" The riposte was automatic, pure technique. At once, his next line was there, as if in a script. "Because he made you feel good in bed? My God, he must have been good if he could do that for you." The contempt was acted, yet absolute. In his head, Anna stared reprovingly. And he saw her face the moment after she died, when he held her body. He winced, almost protested aloud, then controlled his reactions, and listened.
Rodin seemed to have drawn calm from the silence. He said in a quiet voice: "Just like my father."
"If I'm like your father, Valery, then what did you want from me?" Priabin's voice was softer, almost soothing. Anna's face retreated.
He glanced at his watch. Twelve-thirty. He stamped almost viciously on his impatience. He had to stay with Rodin. The boy wanted to talk, must be made to talk usefully, to the point.
"Just to talk," Rodin murmured. The hashish had calmed him thoroughly. His voice was slow, easy, detached.
"Why did you want me to come, Valery? Why now? Why at the moment when you're being sent away?"
"Because I knew you would come," Rodin replied dreamily. He even raised his balloon and swallowed in a mock toast what remained of his cognac. Priabin straightened from the glasses. The hoy s eyes were unfocused, wide-pupiled from the drug and from staring into the night. "I knew you'd come," Rodin repeated.
Time was diminishing quickly now. The boy wasn't frightened any longer. He had to be slapped into wakefulness; Priabin had only his voice and his experience to do it. Anna, go away.
"What did Daddy say, Valery?" he probed, his voice insinuating like a needle. "Why did he beat you up? Just for being queer? Or was he giving you a taste of what's in store for you?" Priabin sensed the others in the room leaning forward, attentive and appreciative. Anna's dead face flashed like a warning. Go away!
"What?" Rodin breathed, shaken.
"Has he abandoned you, Valery? Told you he'll never drag you out of the shit, ever again? Is that what he was telling you with his fists — you're on your own now?" Rodin's quickening breathing, like some indistinct climax, accompanied his words, raced ahead of them. "It was, wasn't it? You'll be at the mercy of everyone at the Academy — they don't like sodomites there, do they? He's going to cure you, Valery, isn't that it? He thinks enough beatings and you'll settle down with a nice young wife, eh? Eh?" Priabin laughed mockingly.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up." Rodin was collapsing in his pain and distress and fear for the future. Future? At the Frunze Academy, without his father's protection, he had no future. He'd be the butt of jokes and casual violence from fellow students and instructors alike. "Shut up, shut up, damn you!" Like the scream of someone being beaten into confession in a distant room. Priabin shuddered.
Rodin's voice had degenerated from words to sobbing; self-pity controlled and enveloped him. Priabin let the noise continue until it faded into a breathy, swallowing quiet. Rodin had walked away from the lighted square of his window and sat heavily on the edge of his bed. Next door, the subdued lighting of the living room showed the place like something in a brochure, for sale or rent; already abandoned.
Eventually, Rodin said in a tiny, empty voice: "You're right, policeman, you're right. He's finished with me. Daddy's finished with his naughty little boy." Priabin bent to the glasses. Rodin sat unmoving, head in his hands. The remainder of the joint was burning a hole in the thick pile of the gray carpet. He might have been posing as a model for some bronze statue meant to symbolize defeat.
"Then talk to me," Priabin replied after a moment. No, he corrected himself. Not softly softly — not yet. "I haven't got time to waste, Valery." Commonsense approach, brisk and shallow. A man with a lot on his plate, things to do. "Do you hear me? Unless you have something for me, I'll have to abandon this interview. Be on my way-"
Silence, stretching so much that Priabin winced against its breaking. Then: "No. Don't do that."
"Why not?"
"I want to talk to you. I have something to tell you." He would not look up, like a child pleading in its misery, cowering in a corner. Afraid to look at the adults in the room. "I — you can come over. I'll unlock the door."
"I don't have much time to waste," Priabin said with difficulty, the pretense of indifference now almost impossible.
&n
bsp; "I won't waste your time," Rodin replied, looking up and out into the night. "I know what you want to know. You come over. Who knows? I might even tell you."
The step onto the wooden porch felt greasy, treacherous beneath Gant's boot. Adamov's eyes, although peering into the dusty wind, nonetheless gleamed. Before Gant glanced away from the man's face, he noted the tightness of expectancy around Adamov's jaw, the slightly flared nostrils. Gant looked at the helicopter as if seeking some quick, complete escape. He felt dangerously inadequate, his feet on the step, the lee of the dwelling offering little protection from the wind. The two Uzbeks remained near the Hind, as if detailed to guard it. Gant felt himself without resources. He could not simply run, simply kill—
He unclenched his hands, looked directly into Adamov's face, and sneered.
"Georgi who? Who's he, comrade, when he's in the house?" He felt his chest tightening as he held his breath. Adamov's features narrowed, as if only now responding to the cold wind. His eyes squinted. Then he rubbed them, clearing flying dust.
"Georgi Karpov? You know him, surely?" he laughed.
Gant shook his head, watching Adamov's hand, the holster at his hip, the hand, the holster, the hand… which came unclosed slowly, purposefully, then passed the holster, moving up to the peak of his cap. His shoulders shrugged.
"I've never heard of him, comrade Captain — and neither have Gant said slowly, evenly. Then, more quickly, he added: What''s the matter with you, policeman?"
The hand left the cap, hitting Gant's shoulder like a statement of arrest. Then Adamov laughed.
"I thought he was posted to Alma-Ata. Haven't heard from him for a couple of years, though. Could have moved on." He shivered. "Come on, man, let's get out of this bloody wind." Then he added as easily as taking his next breath: "Bloody country."
Gant glanced quickly toward the Hind, then said: "Sure." He allowed himself to be pushed ahead of Adamov, the skin crawling hotly on his back almost immediately, despite the chill of his body. The wind knifed along the porch, the dust curled like brown waves across the concrete.