by Stuart Woods
Rawls nodded. “I’ve had a few of those in my time.”
“What did you do?”
He laughed. “I kept at it. Made something of it, sometimes, too. Other times, got my ass in a wringer.”
“That’s about where I am, but I can’t let go of this one. I think this is very, very important, Ed.”
“I believe you,” he said. “I know how bright you are, and although I haven’t seen much of you lately, I’ve heard good things. If I were in the director’s shoes, I’d listen, at the very least.”
“Thanks.” Rule waited until he had poured coffee, then leaned forward. “Listen, Ed, I understand why you can’t listen to my theory right now, but I could use some advice, and some help, if you’ll give it to me.” She knew he was in her debt, but she didn’t want to be too blatant in reminding him.
“Advice? Sure. Help? That depends on what kind.”
Rule took a deep breath. “First of all, I need a computer security code for entry to COSMO. As things stand now, if I use my own code and they audit my online time, they’ll know I’m still working on this, and I’ll get shipped. I need somebody’s unlock from another department entirely, preferably one they won’t audit in the course of things.”
Rawls grinned a small grin. “Okay, don’t write this down, memorize it.” He recited a ten-digit code. “Got it?”
Rule repeated it to herself. “Got it. It’s not yours? I don’t want to hang this on you.”
He shook his head. “It’s Simon’s. Don’t ask me how I got it.”
She laughed. “You’re pretty sneaky.”
“They trained me to be sneaky. I’m too old to stop now. What else do you need?”
Rule thought about the goon hanging around outside her house. “I need a good mechanic, somebody versatile.”
Rawls frowned. “You’re not going to crank up something on the domestic side, are you?” The CIA was authorized to conduct operations only abroad. The FBI handled domestic operations, and although the Agency had run illegal projects at home, they had often got their fingers burned.
She shook her head. “It’s only for defensive purposes, I promise.”
Rawls thought for a moment. “There’s a guy named Danny Burgis, he was Company a while back. Runs a security service in D.C.—alarms, guard dogs, whatever anybody needs. We used to fly light planes together. He’s in the book; use a clean phone. Tell him Biggles sent you. That’s what he used to call me.”
“One more thing,” she said, and this was the big one. “There was no mention of Majorov in the Malakhov interrogation digests. Surely the name came up. God, the man was the First Chief Directorate!”
Rawls shook his head. “If it isn’t in the digests, we didn’t talk about it.”
Rule knew that was not so. It was Ed’s way of saying he couldn’t discuss it, that it was too hot. Ed was going by the book, but she had a feeling he might interpret the rules in her favor, if she could figure out what to ask for. “Malakhov is wrung dry, is he?” she asked.
“Bled white, believe me.”
“Have you cut him loose yet?” If they had given him a new identity and planted him somewhere, she didn’t have a chance.
“Soon,” Rawls replied.
She knew that Malakhov must have been interrogated somewhere within a reasonable distance of New York, or Rawls wouldn’t have installed his wife there and commuted weekends. If they were about to move him there might be just a chance. She made a stab. “Ed, I want to talk with Malakhov. Give me an hour with him.” To her surprise, Rawl’s didn’t bat an eyelash.
“A mile outside Stowe, Vermont, going south on the main highway, there’s a Texaco station. Be there at three o’clock Sunday afternoon, and be sure you haven’t picked up a tail. Pull into the self-service bay and fill your tank. Pick up on a yellow Jeep Blazer, driver only; follow him away from the station, and not too closely. He’ll take you to a house. You’ll be back at the Texaco station by four. That’ll give you about forty minutes with him.”
“Thanks, Ed.”
“You’ll be wanting to get home,” he said, rising.
At the front door she stopped. “Ed,” she said, “what’s Snowflower?”
Rawls paused before he replied. “I don’t know, Kate.”
Rule hugged him and slipped out the door. She walked quickly back to her neighbor’s house. He looked surprised to see her but let her into his garden. As she let herself in through her back door, she could hear Mozart coming from the living room. Will was dozing with a book in his lap. She woke him gently.
“So how was dinner?” he asked.
“A very decent steak, and a lot of help, thanks,” she replied, kissing him lightly. “Did you eat anything?”
“A frozen diet pizza. You have about two dozen of them in there.”
“That’s what I eat when I’m not at your house; it’s how I keep my figure. Listen, I’d ask you to stay, but my mind is humming; I’d be very bad company. Do you mind?”
“You’re lucky I’m such an understanding guy,” he said, standing up and stretching. “Most fellows would take exception to being invited out to dinner at an expensive restaurant, getting into a dinner jacket, and then end up dining alone on diet pizza while you eat steak with somebody else, not to mention being sent home in a sexually unfulfilled condition.”
“I know how lucky I am,” she said, slipping her arms around his waist, “and I can’t even tell you about any of this, at least, not yet. It’s extremely important to me, though, and maybe to a lot of other people, too.” They strolled toward the front door. She stopped. “Listen, the rest of this week is going to be bad for me, and I’ve got to go out of town on Sunday. Can I call you the first of the week?”
“You’re forgetting, I’m off to Finland on Sunday, by way of Stockholm.”
“Oh, God, of course, and I’m meeting you in Copenhagen.
“By the way,” he said, reaching into an inside coat pocket and retrieving an airline folder, “here’s your ticket to Copenhagen and a hotel voucher, in case we don’t arrive there absolutely simultaneously.” He frowned. “You are still planning to come, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am, Will. In fact, it might be the best thing for me to get out of the office for a while. You have to understand, though, that with this Majorov thing the way it is, I might have to cancel at the last minute.”
“Well, okay,” he sighed. “I know you’ll do the best you can.”
“Did you walk here?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I know this seems weird, but I’m going to leave the house first. You wait two minutes, then go, all right?”
“Whatever you say,” he shrugged. “I’m too sleepy to even wonder about it.” He kissed her.
She switched on the stoop light, let herself out of the house, and walked quickly away, in the opposite direction from Will’s. A couple of minutes later, she found a newsstand, bought a paper, and walked home. She didn’t bother looking for the goon; she knew he’d be there somewhere. At least, he wouldn’t follow Will home; if he didn’t already know who Will was, he wouldn’t find out tonight.
She didn’t get much sleep that night. Her mind was still racing.
18
HELDER lay on his bed, swathed in a thick terrycloth robe from Bloomingdale’s, still wet from his shower, and tried to examine his feelings. What he felt was a mixture of pride, apprehension, excitement, curiosity, and the terrible tingle, from far away, of raw fear. It was oddly familiar.
He tried to match this sensation with earlier times: his first ascent in the escape tank at sub school; his first patrol; his first patrol as captain. It was not quite like any of them. This was not training, not maneuvers; this was military action. Even if no shot were fired, this was combat, Helder’s first.
Now he knew the feeling, from a long way back: his first girl. He had visited an uncle and aunt on their farm south of Tallinn; he had been sixteen, and the girl was his cousin, their daughter, a year older. He had kno
wn from the moment they met that she would be his first girl, and for days he anticipated her as she teased and rubbed against him. They had finally had each other in the back of a wagon, on a tarpaulin, and the smell of canvas aroused him to this day. He was aroused, now, by that same odd mixture of feelings, and the memory.
There was the rattle of fingernails on the door; Trina let herself in and closed the door behind her. Then she laughed. “What are you thinking of?” she laughed, nodding at the bulge under the robe.
“Of you,” he grinned. “Come here to me.”
She came across the room, shedding clothes along the way, and tugged at the thick robe. “Off,” she said. “I want this off.” She threw a leg over him and took him immediately inside her. “You’re going,” she said. “You’re going tomorrow.” She moved slowly, rhythmically. “You want to go, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, moving with her, occasionally breaking their rhythm with a jab. “I want it very much. But I don’t want to leave you.”
“You’ll be back,” she said, and her voice rose to a little cry.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be back. I’ll be back for you.”
“Promise me.”
“I’ll be back.”
They came together. Later, instead of dinner, they made love again, then again.
When Helder woke the next morning, Trina was gone. Almost immediately, there was a firm knock on his door, and he scrambled for a robe. Mr. Jones came swiftly into the room.
“Ah, good morning, Mr. Swenson,” he said, cheerfully. “I’ve come to help you pack.” He held up a large, clear plastic envelope. “Everything goes into this. You are to take two complete changes of clothing, one pair of shoes, and the personal effects and weapon issued you.” He held up two ammunition clips, then dropped them into the bag. “You are now armed. See that you don’t get into any difficulty which requires more than thirty rounds of ammunition,” he grinned. He held up a small plastic envelope. “Here we have what you are to use should you get into such a situation. You tear open the envelope and find inside a short length of pliable, pink material. You put it into your mouth, pressing between your upper gum and cheek; it will stick there indefinitely, without deteriorating. In extreme conditions, you pluck it loose, bite firmly into it, and swallow. You will lose consciousness almost immediately, and you will be dead shortly afterwards. Absolutely painless; in fact, quite pleasant, I’m told. Never tried it myself,” he chuckled. “Now strip off. I have to oversee your packing and dressing.”
Helder stripped and got into a light running suit and shoes. He packed a tweed jacket, a blazer, two pairs of trousers, underwear, and socks. Jones watched closely as he chose his toilet items and packed everything into a parachute nylon duffel. Jones went to the desk, retrieved a drawing pad, the Rapidograph drawing pen, and Helder’s wallet. He checked the driver’s license and credit cards carefully, then held up a slip of paper. “Here’s a receipt from a Chinese laundry on Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village.” From an inside pocket he took an American passport and opened it. “Nice photo, eh? Sign the passport.”
Helder signed the passport, then flipped through its pages, glancing at the stamps. “I arrived in Sweden today?”
“Correct; first trip abroad,” Jones said.
Helder packed the passport, wallet, and drawing materials into his duffel, then Jones dropped the bag into the large plastic envelope and closed it with a zipper. “There you are, Carl Swenson,” he said. “Shall we go?”
Helder left with Jones in Majorov’s golf cart; they drove down the hillside to the camouflaged submarine pens. The guards waved them through the gates, and Jones maneuvered the cart into the cavernous shed and stopped. Majorov came to greet them.
“Good morning, Swenson,” he said, smiling broadly. “I see Jones has prepared you.”
“Indeed he has, sir,” Helder replied. “I feel like a new man.”
“Good, good, now come and see your cargo.” Majorov led the way across the shed and down a flight of concrete steps to the Juliet class sub. The forward doors were open, the Type Four minisub had been backed into the hold, and before it sat the squat, cylindrical navigation buoy, somewhat larger in diameter than the dummy Helder had been training with. Instead of steel, like the dummy, its surface was of a dull, plastic-looking material, one he had not seen before. There were brackets on either side to accept the grapplers from the minisub.
Helder was worried by the difference in size from the dummy. “How much does it weigh?” he asked.
Majorov looked momentarily irritated. “About sixty kilos more than the dummy. I trust you can handle it.”
Helder wasn’t at all certain that he could. He felt that the Type Four had been working at the outer limits of its control functions on the last exercise. He couldn’t be certain, of course, until he actually worked with the real buoy, and Majorov seemed in no mood for delays. He was about to reply when Valerie Sokolov’s voice came from behind him.
“There will be no difficulties, Colonel,” she said, firmly.
Helder turned and glared but did not speak to her. “I think I can handle it, sir,” he said.
“Fine,” Majorov replied. “Now, let’s get on with it. Sokolov, do the brackets and grapplers mate properly?”
“Yes, Colonel. All is well.”
“Get the buoy loaded, then.”
Sokolov waved to three men in coveralls standing near, and they came and began manhandling the heavy object toward the grapplers of the minisub. Helder noticed, for the first time, that they were wearing yellow radiation badges, the type that turned blue if it received a significant dosage. He thought that spent uranium 235, with which Majorov had said the buoy was ballasted, would not require such care, but, he supposed, he could not quarrel with caution. Sokolov entered the Type Four and manipulated the grapplers until they mated with the buoy’s brackets. Then, using the sub’s power, plus the muscles of the three men, they lifted the buoy into its position, just under the ports through which Helder would see out of the sub. Under water, the extra buoyancy would enable the grapplers alone to maneuver the buoy. Helder hoped so, anyway.
Sokolov came out of the sub, and the doors of the Juliet whined shut. The sub’s skipper came up to Majorov and saluted. “We are ready to proceed, Colonel,” he said.
“Excellent, Captain,” Majorov smiled. He turned to Helder and took his hand. “Well, Helder,” he said warmly, “now you are ready to do what you have been trained for. I know you will do it well.” Majorov glanced at Sokolov and squeezed Helder’s hand slightly. “Remember all of your instructions.”
“I remember, Colonel,” Helder replied. “Thank you for this opportunity.”
“Good luck, Sokolov,” Majorov said, shaking her hand.
Helder and Sokolov followed the sub’s skipper onto its decks, and two men removed the narrow gangplank. They climbed to the conning tower and stood as the sub backed out of its berth. As she backed around and turned her bows toward the lake and the Baltic beyond, Helder caught sight of an oddly familiar figure standing on the concrete jetty, wearing the uniform of a captain, first grade, chatting with Majorov. Helder was jolted by the sight and at first thought he must be mistaken. Then, as the man turned in profile to say something to Majorov, Helder knew he was right. They had been in sub school together and occasionally had bumped into each other at Murmansk and other sub ports over the years. His name was Gushin, and he was now one of the most famous—or rather, infamous officers in the Soviet navy. In October of 1981, he had run a Whiskey class submarine aground near a secret Swedish naval base. For a week the sub had remained caught there, while diplomatic negotiations went on between the Swedes and the Soviets over the fate of the sub and its crew. Finally, the Soviets had permitted a limited inspection of the sub by the Swedes, and it had been towed off the ground and had made its way home, escorted by Soviet ships.
Every Soviet naval officer knew the story, knew more than just the terse stories in Izvestia and the military newspapers. Gushi
n had been stripped of his rank, discharged dishonorably from the Soviet Navy, and given a long prison term at hard labor in the Gulag. His name was a synonym for what could happen to an incompetent naval officer. Yet, here he was, in the uniform of a full captain, chatting amiably with the commander in charge of Soviet submarine operations in Swedish waters. Helder climbed down the conning tower ladder of the Juliet and stood, baffled, as the sub’s skipper ordered her crew to dive.
Just what the hell was going on here?
19
RULE left her house Sunday morning, drove to National Airport, and took the Eastern shuttle to New York. She was excited about her meeting with Malakhov and unconcerned with her rearview mirror. Shortly before the plane landed in New York, she got up to go to the john, and, halfway down the aisle, stopped in her tracks. Sleeping in a window seat, snoring lightly, was the man who had been following her. The goon. She stood for a few seconds and got a good look at him, grinding the features into her memory. Five-nine or ten, she estimated, heavyset—maybe one ninety—pale complexion with some old pockmarks, poor haircut, nearly bald on top, wearing a wash-and-wear summer suit, forty-fivish, typical of the sort of drone that did the dirty work in Washington’s East European embassies. He probably had poor teeth and bad dental work. She briefly entertained the idea of taking the empty seat next to him and scaring hell out of him when he woke up, but she continued to the washroom.
At La Guardia, she hit the terminal moving fast. She had a little more than an hour to lose the tail and connect with a New England Air flight to Burlington, and she wanted to get into the taxi queue as far ahead of him as possible. It didn’t work. As her cab drove away, she saw him handing the cab starter money, and the next man in line miming rage at the queue-jumper. She considered giving her driver a thrill by telling him to lose the cab behind, but she didn’t want to let her tail know she knew he was there. “Metropolitan Museum,” she said.
Traffic was light, and they were there in under half an hour. She trotted up the broad steps to the museum and inside, not bothering to look behind her. She knew he would be there. She flashed her membership card at the members’ desk and got an entry badge. He, she felt fairly certain, would not be a member and would be forced into the public ticket line. She walked quickly past the guard into the central hallway, then turned quickly to her right, into the museum shop, and waited. The public line must have been long, she thought; nearly five minutes passed before she saw his reflection in a showcase, bolting down the hallway into the Sunday throngs. She gave him fifteen seconds to become hopelessly confused, then walked through the shop and out of the museum. It had been stupid of him to follow her into the place. He should have waited at the front door; there was only one entrance. She caught a cab discharging a woman and three small children and was back at LaGuardia in another halfhour, making sure the goon didn’t have a partner tailing her. On the plane, she took deep breaths and tried to cool off. Had she not been able to shake the tail, she’d have missed her flight to Burlington and her appointment with Malakhov.