Summit

by Richard Bowker

  Valentina nodded and attempted a smile. Doctor Chukova kissed her on the forehead, and then went to find Rylev.

  He was watching Trofimov assemble his machine. Trofimov's beard had been shaved off as part of his disguise for the trip; he looked younger and somehow more trustworthy without it. He also looked happy. Valentina was back, and that meant he was important once again.

  "She wants to talk to you," Doctor Chukova said to Rylev.

  He nodded. "How is she?"

  "Under the circumstances, she is all right."

  "Good. I'll see her in a while."

  He turned back to Trofimov. She had done her job for the moment, and now she was dismissed. She returned to her room and tried to sleep. Sleep did not come easy for her anymore, however; there was too much guilt, too much despair inside her.

  And only one dim hope, one small thing to be proud of: she had defied them and told Volodya that they were going to New York. Apparently Rylev had not found out about this. Would Volodya get the information to the CIA? Would they know what to do? Or was it all merely a last futile challenge to her omnipotent masters?

  She didn't know, and it was out of her hands now. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of lying in the Lenin Hills with Volodya, laughing and drinking vodka in a meadow as they gazed out at the city before them. But she finally noticed that it wasn't a meadow where they lay, but a cemetery. She looked at Volodya; why had he taken her to this place? And instead of his familiar smiling face she saw a skull, grinning, not out of joy, but at the insanity of life, the idiocy of believing you could ever be happy. "Did you get the message to them?" she tried to ask, but his skull merely grinned some more, and then his bony hand reached out to her.

  * * *

  Rylev knocked on Valentina's door, and entered when he heard her weak response. She was lying in bed. She looked up at him with hatred. He didn't mind being hated, although the power behind her hatred sometimes gave him pause. You have to choose your enemies with care. He sat down on a wooden chair at the foot of the bed. "Good evening, Valentina. I trust you are comfortable."

  She ignored the pleasantry. "Why can't Daniel Fulton be here with me?" she demanded.

  He smiled. "We don't want anything to interfere with your preparations, you see. You shouldn't be distracted on the eve of your greatest triumph."

  "Perhaps I'll be more distracted wondering if he's still alive."

  "Oh, he's still alive, Valentina. You needn't worry about that."

  "Why should I trust you?"

  "Surely you can understand that killing Fulton does us no good whatsoever," he said. "You may not trust us, but you have to admit we're not stupid."

  "But keeping him alive matters only if I'm convinced he's alive. And I'm not. And that makes it very difficult for me to concentrate on Theodore Winn."

  Rylev considered. This wasn't in the plan. Taking Fulton out of the safe house and bringing him here involved risks that he would prefer to avoid. But he also had to keep Valentina happy. Her infatuation had gotten them this far; now they would have to put up with the consequences. "I tell you what," he said. "After the first day of the summit, if you perform acceptably, we will have Fulton talk to you on the telephone, as proof that he's alive."

  "I have to see him in person."

  Rylev stifled an urge to make a cutting remark and turn her down. These weren't equal negotiations. But he had to admit she had some power in them. "All right," he said, "we'll bring him here and show him to you. Is that sufficient?"

  She didn't look happy about it, but she wasn't going to get any more from him. "I suppose," she said, capitulating. And then she brought up another issue, one that he had known they would have to face eventually. "What's going to happen to Daniel afterward, when you no longer need him?"

  It was interesting that she didn't ask about herself. Perhaps it was too obvious what was going to happen to her, if she survived her time in the pyramid. At any rate, he had an answer ready for her. "I'm not going to tell you that we'll let him go and everything will be fine, Valentina, because you're too intelligent for that. Fulton knows too much for us to simply free him. Instead we'll offer him the opportunity to defect. Back in the Soviet Union, he can continue playing the piano, but we will be able to keep an eye on him. It will be a tremendous coup for the Soviet Union, of course, and not unpleasant for him. He is widely admired in our country, I understand."

  "And if he doesn't agree to defect?"

  Rylev shrugged. "Then he will be very foolish indeed."

  It was just plausible enough for her to accept. She had to believe there was some hope, and he had given the hope to her. She closed her eyes; she seemed to be straining not to cry. He waited. "I hope someday you are treated the way I have been treated," she whispered finally.

  Not much of a curse, he thought. She had not been treated particularly badly. And if she felt she had been, it was after all her own fault. If she had been more concerned with the motherland than with her own needs and desires, none of this would have been required. "Is there anything else?" he asked.

  She ignored him. He watched her for a few moments, then silently got up and left the room.

  * * *

  Lawrence Hill was taking a well-deserved vacation. He was spending it in the Soviet Mission to the United Nations. If Bertram Culpepper and the rest of Hill's superiors at the CIA found out about this, it would make for certain difficulties, to say the least, but they weren't likely to find out. And in the meantime he was enjoying himself.

  Some people spy because it is their duty. Hill had that motivation, to be sure, but in addition he liked spying, liked the danger and the mystery and, yes, even the boredom, liked the infinite shades of gray that made up his world. Being a double agent, then, was twice as enjoyable. Everything about his life now had to be carefully considered, because every act was a betrayal. He thought of himself as a dull man, but this added edge of fear made even the dullest part of his existence terribly exciting.

  In a way, the excitement meant as much to him as his newfound loyalty to communism and the Soviet Union. Perhaps that was because the excitement was the response of his own personality to the situation, while the switch of loyalties had been imposed from the outside. It didn't matter, though, just as the method of conversion didn't matter. He was what he was, and he rather liked himself now. It certainly didn't hurt that he was on the verge of successfully completing the most important operation in the history of his profession.

  He was staying in an office that had been converted into a bedroom for the operation; most of the regular KGB officers had been temporarily sent off to other parts of the building, with scarcely a word of explanation. There was, Hill supposed, some minor risk that one of them—or some other Soviet employee in the building—was a double agent and would recognize him, but Hill was willing to take that risk. He had to be here when it happened; he had to be a part of it.

  There was a knock on his door. "Come in," he said in Russian.

  Rylev entered, bearing a bottle of vodka and two glasses. "A long day's work, Lawrence Hill," he said. "Time to relax."

  Hill smiled and gestured to a chair. Rylev's pronunciation of his name was closer to "kill" than "Hill."

  "I find it a little difficult to relax just yet," he said.

  Rylev sat down. "That's where the vodka comes in." He poured a couple of fingers worth into each glass, and then raised his in a toast. "To our success."

  "To our success." Hill picked up the other glass, clinked it with Rylev's, and then took a sip. He watched Rylev down his in one swallow, after which the KGB officer took a bite out of a salted cucumber that he produced from his pocket. Hill hated vodka and couldn't imagine how Russians drank the stuff the way they did. Still, when in Rome, you at least had to try to do as the Romans did. He took another sip.

  "It will be a success, you know," Rylev said, pouring himself some more. "We have everything under control. I couldn't have dreamed of it going any more smoothly."

  "We'
ve been very lucky."

  "And skillful."

  Hill nodded his agreement. He had met Rylev in person for the first time today, and still felt a little uncomfortable with him—a residual response to the KGB, perhaps, or perhaps it was just the tension. He often had difficulty sorting out the reasons behind his feelings nowadays.

  "I feel sorry for you, you know," Rylev went on. "I will get a big promotion out of this, but for you—nothing. You can't even defect, because that would throw suspicion on all your previous activities. You just have to go back to work and pretend that nothing has happened."

  "It doesn't matter. It will just give me more of an opportunity to serve the Soviet Union."

  Rylev laughed and shook his head. "It is hard to get used to such statements coming from a capitalist spy. We were worried at the beginning, you know, that it was all some sort of trick—that Borisova had no powers and we were the ones being fooled somehow. But here I am drinking vodka with you."

  Hill forced himself to take another sip. "The world is a strange place."

  Rylev refilled both glasses. "To the new world after the summit. It too will be a strange place, but a better one."

  "To the new world." The vodka tasted alien and bitter, but Hill continued to drink it until Rylev staggered off to bed, protesting his undying friendship. He was a good fellow. There were good fellows in America too, of course, trying to kill the good fellows in Russia. Well, he had chosen his side—or, rather, it had been chosen for him—and he would fight for it to the end.

  And he would enjoy the fight.

  Chapter 36

  "I'd like to see Mr. Hershohn, please."

  Marcia glanced at the overweight man in the checked suit. She was not impressed. "Do you have an appointment, sir?"

  "No, I don't. This won't take long, though."

  "I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Hershohn is quite busy at the moment. If you could tell me the nature of your business—"

  The man was holding out some sort of ID to her. Marcia glanced at it.

  CIA.

  "Oh, shit," she said. "Uh, one moment, please." She buzzed her boss. "Someone from the Central Intelligence Agency to see you, sir," she said to Hershohn, in a cold tone that she hoped conveyed her fury. They were all going to be murdered, and it was all his fault.

  * * *

  "This won't take long, sir," the CIA man said. "I just wanted to know if you could tell me where I might find Daniel Fulton."

  "Fulton? Is something the matter? Is he all right?" Hershohn felt as if his worst nightmare was coming true.

  "I don't really know, sir. I'd just like to talk to him."

  "Well, um, I haven't seen him in a while. He's not at home?"

  "What would be his home address, sir?"

  "Don't you people have it already?" That was a mistake, Hershohn thought immediately. He wasn't supposed to know anything about any of this. But what was going on, if they needed his help to find Fulton?

  "I don't know his address, sir."

  Hershohn gave it to him. "We could call," Hershohn offered, "but he doesn't usually answer his phone."

  "I understand. Is there anywhere else he might be, if he's not at home?"

  Hershohn thought. "Well, there's another pianist he's friendly with—Dmitri Khorashev, his teacher. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

  "And what would be his address, sir?"

  Hershohn looked it up and gave it to the CIA man as well. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

  "Not at this time, sir."

  "If Fulton does get in touch with me, should I call you people up or something?"

  The CIA man seemed to consider. "No need to do that, sir. I'll contact you if I need further assistance. Have a nice day."

  People who are visited by the CIA never have a nice day, Hershohn thought ruefully. As he escorted the man out of the office, he noticed the way Marcia was looking at him, and he realized that his day wasn't going to get any better.

  * * *

  It was a pleasant neighborhood, Sullivan thought as he drove his rental car to where Daniel Fulton lived. The kind of neighborhood that has estates, not houses. Stick it in Virginia, and it would be where Houghton and Roderick Williams and George Loud lived. Fulton's estate was up a long, steep driveway. It was vaguely disappointing. The house was a small Tudor that needed a paint job, and the grounds were unkempt. Maybe he couldn't be bothered keeping the place up. His neighbors probably didn't like him, Sullivan thought. Eccentric artists brought down the property values. The front door was locked, and there was no key under the mat. He rang the bell; no answer.

  He circled the house, looking for an open window. There wasn't one, so finally he pried open the sliding glass doors leading out to an ugly deck and slipped inside.

  He found himself in a large room dominated by a grand piano. The room was a mess—but no messier than his own living room, he reflected. Bachelors.

  A quick search revealed that the place was empty, although someone had been there recently, judging from the date on the milk carton in the refrigerator. No signs of a struggle. He replayed the messages on the answering machine in the bedroom upstairs. Nothing of interest—except for one message, and that one had nothing to do with why Sullivan had broken into this man's home:

  "Daniel, this is your father. Your mother thought you might call when you got back from Moscow, but—well, we know how busy you are. The thing is, your mother hasn't been feeling well lately and she's been to see a doctor and, well, there's a tumor and they're going to operate. She doesn't know I'm calling you, and I'm sure she'd be angry if she found out, but I had to. I think it's important that you see her before the operation. Please, Daniel. I know you two have had your, uh, difficulties over the years, but can't we forget them now? Please."

  There was silence on the tape, then a beep and the next message. Sullivan closed his eyes and thought of his own mother. Maybe he wasn't the world's greatest son, but he was certainly better than this guy. Eccentric artists were apparently jerks, in addition to being slobs.

  Still, he had to find Fulton, jerk or not, because Fulton was the only person who might lead him to Valentina Borisova. And he had to reach her today. He left the house and quickly drove back to the city.

  * * *

  Sullivan's ID got him past the haughty doorman of the apartment building on Central Park, and he took the elevator to Khorashev's floor. It was the kind of fancy place that had perfume in the elevators and paintings in the hallways. He knocked on Khorashev's door. He thought he could hear a piano being played inside. He knocked louder; the music stopped. After a moment he could feel himself being surveyed through the peephole, so he held his ID up in front of it. "I'm from the Central Intelligence Agency, sir. I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions."

  The door opened slowly. The man who opened it was in his sixties, Sullivan guessed, obviously Russian, and obviously terrified. Why was he terrified?

  "May I come in, sir?"

  The man nodded, and Sullivan stepped past him into the apartment. The decor was very different from that of the hallway. An Elvis Presley paperweight? A poster of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt swirling around her thighs? An old red Coca-Cola sign, The Pause That Refreshes? It looked like a room in a college dorm.

  The man had not yet closed the door. He didn't appear capable of doing anything. Sullivan was not particularly surprised. The letters "CIA" often did that to people. But you couldn't ignore the possibility that there was something more going on. "Are you Dmitri Khorashev?" Sullivan asked.

  "Yes," the man whispered.

  "Would you feel more comfortable if we spoke Russian?" Sullivan said, switching languages.

  Khorashev shook his head emphatically. "I am American. I do not speak Russian anymore."

  "All right. I'm trying to locate a friend of yours named Daniel Fulton. Would you happen to know where he is?"

  Khorashev shut the door. "No. I saw him once when he got back from Moscow. Not since."

  "Has he calle
d?"

  "No. Daniel doesn't like to use the phone." Khorashev's fear seemed to have turned into agitation. "Is he in deep water somehow? You must tell me."

  Deep water? "Would you have any suggestions where he might be, if he isn't at home?"

  "Perhaps Daniel's manager. His name is—"

  "Yes, sir. I've spoken with Mr. Hershohn. Well, thank you for your time."

  "Please, you must tell me what is happening with Daniel."

  "I'm sorry, sir. I'm sure you can understand the need for secrecy in these matters."

  Sullivan moved toward the door. Khorashev's hand was on the knob, but he didn't turn it. The man was behaving very strangely. "You must forgive me," he said. "I have had bad experiences with the secret police in my life. I do not act well in their presence."

  "There's nothing to be afraid of, sir," Sullivan replied. "This isn't the Soviet Union."

  "I understand that, of course. Is purely instinctive. America is a wonderful country."

  "It certainly is."

  Khorashev opened the door. "Good-bye, then."

  "Have a nice day."

  * * *

  So what was he supposed to do next? It hadn't been a very productive day. Fulton was gone; that probably meant the Russians had him and were using him as a hostage to ensure that Borisova did what she was told. All right. Where would they be, then?

  Sullivan knew that the Soviets had compounds in Riverdale and in Glen Cove out on Long Island, but he doubted they would be there. Borisova apparently had to be close to the person she was targeting, which meant that she would be at the Soviet UN Mission on Sixty-seventh Street, unless they had a safe house someplace where they were keeping her. Would Fulton be with her? Why not?

  So what was Sullivan supposed to do? Break into the Soviet Mission? The Soviets were trying to kill him. They would certainly appreciate it if he showed up on their doorstep.

  He picked up a Times. "Grigoriev Arrives in NY; Summit Starts Tomorrow," its headline informed him. Grigoriev was staying in Riverdale. Security was tight. Expectations were high. Sullivan threw the paper away.

  Maybe he should tell his story to the Times. Yes, they were sure to believe him. Or maybe he should strap a bomb to his waist and fling himself in front of Grigoriev's limousine. Probably throw himself in front of the wrong limousine. Fear wasn't his problem now, but the limits of what one rogue operative could do in a situation like this.