by Tom Clancy
“Excuse me,” she said to the hostess upon entering.
“You must be Mrs. Wolfe,” the young lady replied at once. “Please come with me. Mr. Díaz is waiting for you.”
Félix Cortez—Juan Diaz—was sitting in a corner booth at the rear of the restaurant. Moira was sure that he’d picked the dark place for privacy, and that he had his back to the wall so that he could see her coming. She was partially correct on both counts. Cortez was wary of being in this area. CIA headquarters was less than five miles away, thousands of FBI personnel lived in this area, and who could say whether a senior counterintelligence officer might also like this restaurant? He didn’t think that anyone there knew what he looked like, but intelligence officers do not live to collect their pensions by assuming anything. His nervousness was not entirely feigned. On the other hand, he was unarmed. Cortez was in a business where firearms caused far more problems than they solved, public perceptions to the contrary.
Félix rose as she approached. The hostess departed as soon as she realized the nature of this “business dinner,” leaving the two lovers—she thought it was kind of cute—to grab each other’s hands and exchange kisses that were oddly passionate despite their being restrained for so public a place. Cortez seated his lady, pouring her a glass of white wine before resuming his place opposite her. His first words were delivered with sheepish embarrassment.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“How long have you been waiting?” Moira asked. There were a half-dozen stubbed-out cigarettes in the ashtray.
“Almost an hour,” he answered with a funny look. Clearly he was amused at himself, she thought.
“But I’m early.”
“I know.” This time he laughed. “You make me a fool, Moira. I do not act in such a way at home.”
She misread what he was trying to say. “I’m sorry, Juan, I didn’t mean—”
A perfect response, Cortez’s mind reported. Exactly right. He took her hand across the table and his eyes sparkled. “Do not trouble yourself. Sometimes it is good for a man to be a fool. Forgive me for calling you so abruptly. A small business problem. I had to fly to Detroit on short notice, and since I was in the neighborhood, as you say, I wanted to see you before I went home.”
“Problem ... ?”
“A change in the design for a carburetor. Something to do with fuel economy, and I must change some tools in my factories.” He waved his hand. “The problem is solved. These things are not uncommon—and, it gave me an excuse to make an extra trip here. Perhaps I should thank your EPA, or whatever government office complains about air pollution.”
“I will write the letter myself, if you wish.”
His voice changed. “It is so good to see you again, Moira.”
“I was afraid that—”
The emotion on his face was manifest. “No, Moira, it was I who was afraid. I am a foreigner. I come here so seldom, and surely there must be many men who—”
“Juan, where are you staying?” Mrs. Wolfe asked.
“At the Sheraton.”
“Do they have room service?”
“Yes, but why—”
“I won’t be hungry for about two hours,” she told him, and finished off her wine. “Can we leave now?”
Félix dropped a pair of twenties on the table and led her out. The hostess was reminded of a song from The King and I. They were in the lobby of the Sheraton in less than six minutes. Both walked quickly to the elevators, and both looked warily about, both hoping that they wouldn’t be spotted, but for different reasons. His tenth-floor room was actually an expensive suite. Moira scarcely noticed on entering, and for the next hour knew of nothing but a man whose name she mistakenly thought was Juan Diaz.
“So wonderful a thing,” he said at last.
“What’s that?”
“So wonderful a thing that there was a problem with the new carburetor.”
“Juan!”
“I must now create quality-control problems so that they call me every week to Detroit,” he suggested lightly, stroking her arm as he did so.
“Why not build a factory here?”
“The labor costs are too high,” he said seriously. “Of course, drugs would be less of a problem.”
“There, too?”
“Yes. They call it basuco, filthy stuff, not good enough for export, and too many of my workers indulge.” He stopped talking for a moment. “Moira, I try to make a joke, and you force me to speak of business. Have you lost interest in me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think I need to return to Venezuela while I can still walk.”
Her fingers did some exploring. “I think you will recover soon.”
“That is good to know.” He turned his head to kiss her, and let his eyes linger, examining her body in the rays of the setting sun that spilled through the windows. She noticed his stares and reached for the sheet. He stopped her.
“I am no longer young,” she said.
“Every child in all the world looks upon his mother and sees the most beautiful woman in the world, even though many mothers are not beautiful. Do you know why this is so? The child looks with love, and sees love returned. Love is what makes beauty, Moira. And, truly, you are beautiful to me.”
And there it was. The word was finally out in the open. He watched her eyes go somewhat wider, her mouth move, and her breaths deepen for a moment. For the second time, Cortez felt shame. He shrugged it off. Or tried to. He’d done this sort of thing before, of course. But always with young women, young, single ones with an eye for adventure and a taste for excitement. This one was different in so many ways. Different or not, he reminded himself, there was work to be done.
“Forgive me. Do I embarrass you?”
“No,” she answered softly. “Not now.”
He smiled down at her. “And now, are you ready for dinner?”
“Yes.”
“That is good.”
Cortez rose and got the bathrobes from the back of the bathroom door. Service was good. Half an hour later, Moira stayed in the bedroom while the dinner cart was rolled into the sitting room. He opened the connecting door as soon as the waiter left.
“You make of me a dishonest man. The look he gave me!”
She laughed. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had to hide in the other room?”
“And you didn’t order enough. How can you live on this tiny salad?”
“If I grow fat, you will not come back to me.”
“Where I come from, we do not count a woman’s ribs,” Cortez said. “When I see someone who grows too thin, I think it is the basuco again. Where I live, they are the ones who forget even to eat.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Do you know what basuco is?”
“Cocaine, according to the reports I see.”
“Poor quality, not good enough for the criminals to send to the norteamericanos, and mixed with chemicals that poison the brain. It is becoming the curse of my homeland.”
“It’s pretty bad here,” Moira said. She could see that it was something that really worried her lover. Just like it was with the Director, she thought.
“I have spoken to the police at home. How can my workers do their jobs if their minds are poisoned by this thing? And what do the police do? They shrug and mumble excuses—and people die. They die from the basuco. They die from the guns of the dealers. And no one does anything to stop it.” Cortez made a frustrated gesture. “You know, Moira, I am not merely a capitalist. My factories, they give jobs, they bring money into my country, money for the people to build houses and educate their children. I am rich, yes, but I help to build my country—with these hands, I do it. My workers, they come to me and tell me that their children—ah! I can do nothing. Someday, the dealers, they will come to me and try to take my factory,” he went on. “I will go to the police, and the police will do nothing. I will go to the army, and the army will do nothing. You work for your federales, yes?
Is there nothing anyone can do?” Cortez nearly held his breath, wondering what the answer would be.
“You should see the reports I have to type for the Director.”
“Reports,” he snorted. “Anyone can write reports. At home, the police write many reports, and the judges do their investigations—and nothing happens. If I ran my factory in this way, soon I would be living in a hillside shack and begging for money in the street! Do your federales do anything?”
“More than you might think. There are things going on right now that I cannot speak about. What they’re saying around the office is that the rules are changing. But I don’t know what that means. The Director is flying down to Colombia soon to meet with the Attorney General, and—oh! I’m not supposed to tell anybody that. It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“I will tell no one,” Cortez assured her.
“I really don’t know that much anyway,” she went on carefully. “Something new is about to start. I don’t know what. The Director doesn’t like it very much, whatever it is.”
“If it hurts the criminals, why should he not like it?” Cortez asked in a puzzled voice. “You could shoot them all dead in the street, and I would buy your federales dinner afterwards!”
Moira just smiled. “I’ll pass that along. That’s what all the letters say—we get letters from all sorts of people.”
“Your director should listen to them.”
“So does the President.”
“Perhaps he will listen,” Cortez suggested. This is an election year ...
“Maybe he already is. Whatever just changed, it started there.”
“But your director doesn’t like it?” He shook his head. “I do not understand the government in my country. I should not try to understand yours.”
“It is funny, though. This is the first time that I don’t know—well, I couldn’t tell you anyway.” Moira finished her salad. She looked at her empty wineglass. Félix/Juan filled it for her.
“Can you tell me one thing?”
“What?”
“Call me when your director leaves for Colombia,” he said.
“Why?” She was too taken aback to say no.
“For state visits one spends several days, no?”
“Yes, I suppose. I don’t really know.”
“And if your director is away, and you are his secretary, you will have little work to do, no?”
“No, not much.”
“Then I will fly to Washington, of course.” Cortez rose from his chair and took three steps around the table. Moira’s bathrobe hung loosely around her. He took advantage of that. “I must fly home early tomorrow morning. One day with you is no longer enough, my love. Hmm, you are ready, I think.”
“Are you?”
“We will see. There is one thing I will never understand,” he said as he helped her from the chair.
“What is that?”
“Why would any fool use powder for pleasure when he can have a woman?” It was, in fact, something that Cortez never would understand. But it wasn’t his job to understand it.
“Any woman?” she said, heading for the door.
Cortez pulled the robe from her. “No, not any woman.”
“My God,” Moira said, half an hour later. Her chest glistened with perspiration, hers and his.
“I was mistaken,” he gasped facedown at her side.
“What?”
“When your director of federales flies to Colombia, do not call me!” He laughed to show that he was kidding. “Moira, I do not know that I can do this for more than one day a month.”
A giggle. “Perhaps you should not work so hard, Juan.”
“How can I not?” He turned to look at her. “I have not felt like this since I was a boy. But I am no longer a boy. How can women stay young when men cannot?” She smiled with amusement at the obvious lie. He had pleased her greatly.
“I cannot call you.”
“What?”
“I do not have your number.” She laughed. Cortez leaped from the bed and pulled the wallet from his coat pocket, then muttered something that sounded profane.
“I have no cards—ah!” He took the pad from the night table and wrote the number. “This is for my office. Usually I am not there—I spend my days on the shop floor.” A grunt. “I spend my nights in the factory. I spend weekends in the factory. Sometimes I sleep in the factory. But Consuela will reach me, wherever I might be.”
“And I must leave,” Moira said.
“Tell your director that he must make it a weekend trip. We will spend two days in the country. I know of a small, quiet place in the mountains, just a few hours from here.”
“Do you think you can survive it?” she asked with a hug.
“I will eat sensibly and exercise,” he promised her. A final kiss, and she left.
Cortez closed the door and walked into the bathroom. He hadn’t learned all that much, but what he had found out might be crucial. “The rules are changing.” Whatever they were changing to, Director Jacobs didn’t like it, but was evidently going along. He was going to Colombia to discuss it with the Attorney General. Jacobs, he remembered, knew the Attorney General quite well. They had been classmates together in college, over thirty years before. The Attorney General had flown to America for the funeral of Mrs. Jacobs. Something with a presidential seal on it, also. Well. Two of Cortez’s associates were in New Orleans to meet with the attorney for the two fools who’d botched the killing on the yacht. The FBI had certainly played a part in that, and whatever had happened there would give him a clue.
Cortez looked up from washing his hands to see the man who had obtained those intelligence tidbits and decided that he didn’t like the man who had done it. He shrugged off the feeling. It wasn’t the first time. Certainly it wouldn’t be the last.
The shot went off at 23:41 hours. The Titan-IIID’s two massive solid-rocket boosters ignited at the appointed time, over a million pounds of thrust was generated, and the entire assembly leapt off the pad amid a glow that would be seen from Savannah to Miami. The solid boosters burned for 120 seconds before being discarded. At this point the liquid-fuel engines on the booster’s center section ignited, hurling the remaining package higher, faster, and farther downrange. All the while onboard instruments relayed data from the booster to ground station at the Cape. In fact, they were also radioing their data to a Soviet listening post located on the northern tip of Cuba, and to a “fishing trawler” which kept station off Cape Canaveral, and also flew a red flag. The Titan-IIID was a bird used exclusively for military launches, and Soviet interest in this launch resulted from an unconfirmed GRU report that the satellite atop the launcher had been specially modified to intercept very weak electronic signals—exactly what kind the report didn’t specify.
Faster and higher. Half of the remaining rocket dropped off now, the second-stage fuel expended, and the third stage lit off about a thousand miles downrange. In the control bunkers at the Cape, the engineers and technicians noted that everything was still going as planned, as befitted a launch vehicle whose ancestry dated back to the late 1950s. The third stage burned out on time and on profile. The payload, along with the fourth, or transstage, now awaited the proper time to ignite, kicking the payload to its intended geosynchronous height, from which it would hover over a specific piece of the earth’s equator. The hiatus allowed the control-room crew to top off their coffee, make necessary pit stops, and review the data from the launch, which, they all agreed, had been about as perfect as an engineer had any right to expect.
The trouble came half an hour later. The transstage ignited early, seemingly on its own, boosting the payload to the required height, but not in the expected place; also, instead of being perfectly placed in a stationary position, the payload was left in an eccentric path, meandering in a lopsided figure-eight that straddled the equator. Even if it had been over the right longitude, the path would negate its coverage of the higher latitudes for brief but annoying periods of time. Despite
everything that had gone right, all the thousands of parts that had functioned exactly as designed, the launch was a failure. The engineering crew who managed the lower stages shook their heads in sympathy with those whose responsibility had been the transstage, and who now surveyed launch control in evident dejection. The launch was a failure.
The payload didn’t know that. At the appointed time, it separated itself from the transstage and began to perform as it had been programmed. Weighted arms ten meters in length extended themselves. Gravity from an earth over twenty thousand miles away would act on them through tidal forces, keeping the satellite forever pointed downward. Next the solar panels deployed to convert sunlight into electricity, charging the onboard batteries. Finally, an enormous dish antenna began to form. Made of a special metal-ceramic-plastic material, its frame “remembered” its proper configuration, and on being heated by sunlight unfolded itself over a three-hour period until it formed a nearly perfect parabolic dish fully thirty meters in diameter. Anyone close enough to view the event would have noticed the builder’s plate on the side of the satellite. Why this was done was itself an anachronism, since there would never be anyone close enough to notice, but it was the custom. The plate, made of gold foil, designated the prime contractor as TRW, and the name of the satellite as Rhyolite-J. The last of an obsolete series of such satellites, it had been built in 1981 and sat in storage—at the cost of over $100,000 per year—awaiting a launch that had never actually been expected, since CIA and NSA had developed newer, less cumbersome electronic-reconnaissance birds that used advanced signal-gathering equipment. In fact, some of the new equipment had been attached to this obsolete bird, made even more effective by the massive receiving dish. Rhyolite had been originally designed to eavesdrop on Soviet electronic emissions, telemetry from missile tests, side-lobes from air-defense radars, scatterings from microwave towers, even for signals from spy devices dropped off by CIA officers and agents at sensitive locations.