“So you could pick her brains, too? She had enough of that. In this way,” Durell said, “they think we got her back to them as a gratuitous gesture. It’s humiliating to the KGB, and a burden that will make them very unhappy. They’ll owe me reciprocity, some day.”
“That’s not enough. Your job was to get the dope from her on their lunar program.”
Durell sighed. “I’m a sick man. I need some consolation. Where is Lotus?”
“I am here,” she said.
The Chinese girl had been sitting gravely just beyond his line of vision near the bed. Her hands were folded demurely in her lap, but her lovely eyes were eloquent as she looked at Durell—and a little afraid.
“What will happen to me, Mr. Sam?” she asked.
“I’m not buying you roses,” he said. “You’re coming to the States with me, when they let me out of here. Under my personal escort.”
“Will it be a quick trip?”
“We’ll go the long way around. Did I thank you for getting Hanookh and Hannigan for me, when I didn’t come out of Ramsur Sepah’s garden party?”
“You owe me no thanks.”
“We’ll see. You’re very beautiful, Lotus.”
“It is you who are beautiful, Mr. Sam.”
Hanookh came in and remained a few minutes, long enough to announce that he was now in charge of his security department, replacing the former Colonel Saajadi. They shook hands in mutual esteem, and Hanookh left some newspapers that announced, in a brief, noncommittal item, that a nomad revolt in a desert settlement in the Dasht-i-Kavir had been quieted by prompt military and police action. An obituary item on Ramsur Sepah deplored his untimely death due to a heart attack.
Ten minutes after Hanookh left, Miss Moriarity returned with a fat envelope carrying the state seal of the USSR embassy. “A messenger brought this for you,” she said in disapproval. “It’s quite irregular.”
“To be fraternizing with the enemy?” Durell grinned.
Hannigan said: “Whatever it is, Cajun, give it to me.”
“It’s from Professor Ouspanaya. It‘s what Washington hoped to get by grabbing Tanya and holding her for interrogation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When we escaped from Har-Buri’s mountain, Ouspanaya said he’d give me this. I didn’t ask for it, but I
didn’t refuse, either. It’s the full documentation of the
Special Training Program for Lunar Landing Experiments conducted by the professor’s special team. The works. The good and the bad; where it was useful, and where it failed. It will save our NASA people a lot of trial-and-error headaches.”
“But that’s what McFee was praying for!” Hannigan exploded.
Durell sighed and closed his eyes. Hannigan rushed from the room with the envelope. There was a small silence. Then a frightened voice said, “Mr. Sam?”
“Yes, Lotus.”
“Is Madame Hung really dead?”
“I don’t know. But you won’t have to be afraid of her ever again."
“I have never seen the Western world. Will I like it?”
“You will like what I’ll show you.”
“Istanbul?”
“And Rome.”
“Paris?”
“And London.”
“It will take so many days to show me these wonderful places, Mr. Sam.”
“We’ve got time,” Durell said. “We’ll make the most of it.”
Assignment Moon Girl Page 19