Ikon (19 page)

‘All right, Mrs Alexander, you drop the needle, you understand me? You drop it. Right there, on the rug. That’s it. Now, get up, please and back off right to the

wall.’

Nadine brushed straight her skirt as she stepped back against the bedroom wall. She left the hypodermic on the thick white rug, glistening in the morning sunlight. Joe Jasper came forward and picked it up.

‘What’s this? Strychnine? Cyanide?’

Nadine didn’t answer. Joe held the hypodermic up towards Colleen, and said, This is how much your precious Mrs Alexander has been looking after you. Making love to you with one hand, and getting ready to murder you with the other. So what do you think about that?’

That’s poison?’ asked Colleen, in shock.

‘It’s just a sedative/ said Nadine. ‘All I wanted to do was to make sure you stayed in the house today.’

‘A sedative?’ asked Joe, disbelievingly. ‘All right, if it’s a sedative, why don’t you show us yourself? Here … inject this into your own arm. Then we’ll see just what kind of a sedative it is.’

Nadine said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m only trying to keep Colleen from going out. Titus wanted to make sure that she was around today.’

‘Mr Alexander called me this morning before you got here,’ said Joe. That wasn’t the story he told me. Mr Alexander was worried you might be thinking of doing something stupid.’

That’s a sedative, nothing else. A solution of chloral

hydrate.’

Then prove it.’

‘I don’t have to.’

‘Oh yes, you do. Crack! Get out of that cot and give me some help! Crack! Do you hear me?’

It was a little while before Crack Neilsen appeared in the doorway, in undervest and jockey-shorts, rubbing his face as if it were made out of the same heavy silicon syrup as a Stretch Hulk. ‘What’s going on here? Oh, hi, Mrs Alexander. Hi, Colleen. What’s the matter, Joe?’

Joe waved the Magnum towards Nadine. ‘Mrs Alexander here wants some help with an injection. Here’s the syringe. All you have to do is make sure that she jabs it right into herself. That’s it. Right into a vein.’

Crack frowned at Joe and then at Nadine. ‘Have you people had some kind of an argument?’

‘Will you stop asking questions, Crack, for Christ’s sake, and just take the syringe and make sure that Mrs Alexander gets her injection.’

Crack hesitated, and then shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, Joe.’ He took the syringe and held it up between one stubby finger and one stubby thumb. ‘What is it, anyway? Dope, or something?’

‘Nothing like that. Just a little sleeping potion. That’s what Mrs Alexander says, anyway.’

Crack came up to Nadine and lifted up her arm. Nadine stared at Joe with an expression that was cold as Barre granite, and just as unreadable. In response, and maybe in fear, Joe raised the muzzle of the Magnum a little higher. If the hypodermic really contained poison, she would die almost instantly. But if it didn’t, he would be faced with the prospect of having to kill her. It wasn’t an easy choice to have to contemplate: apart from the repercussions from police and security services, and from Titus himself, he would have to explain himself to Kama and Dyunavich. Besides, a .357 Magnum was a completely unsuitable weapon for killing a woman in a white-carpeted bedroom. The whole room would have to be redecorated, ceiling and all.

Crack Neilsen turned to Joe, and asked, ‘Now?’ and in the instant Crack turned, Jesus, Joe could see it happening, he could see it taking place right in front of his eyes but Crack was too close to Nadine for him to think of pulling the trigger, apart from all the reservations inside of him which said don’t pull it yet, wait, it’s going to cause too much trouble, too much mess. But Nadine seized Crack’s wrist, the wrist of the hand which held the hypodermic, and thrust it upwards into Crack’s face, so that the needle stuck right up into the fleshy underside of his nose, right

up to the chromium hilt, and then she pressed the plunger halfway in before Crack even had time to screech out.

Crack said, ‘Shit,and tugged the hypodermic out, and threw it across the room. Then he lifted his eyes and realized that everybody was staring at him. Joe, Nadine, and Colleen.

‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what’s so fucking funny?’

Joe said to Nadine, ‘If he dies, I warn you. I’m going to kill you right where you stand.’

Colleen moved around the bed, but Joe waved the revolver in her direction, too, and said, ‘You stay back, lady, or the same thing’s going to happen to you.’

‘If he dies?’ Crack demanded. His face looked suddenly and remarkably blue. His lips could have been two small fish, seen through the glass wall of an oceanarium. ‘What are you talking about, if he dies? What do you mean, if he dies?’

The hydrocyanic acid was diffused through Crack’s nervous system with frightening speed. He suddenly choked, and tried to reach up to feel his face, but dropped heavily on to his knees. Then, before anybody could touch him or help him, he fell flat on his face, and lay there shuddering and twitching, and then died.

They knew he was dead. His eyes glassed over, and his bright turquoise tongue slid out from between his parted lips as if it were some disgusting parasitic worm making an unsuccessful attempt to escape from its expired host.

Joe Jasper raised the Magnum again, but Nadine knew now that he wasn’t going to shoot her. Not straight away, at least. Not here. Not unless she did something too quick and too foolish.

‘They taught you well, didn’t they?’ he asked her. ‘But let me tell you here and now, you’re not going to get away with it.’

‘I always had a suspicion that you were one of the Peredoviki,’ Nadine replied. ‘You were always much too subservient, much too helpful. Nobody could treat anyone like that unless they believed that, ultimately, they were going to be able to rub it all back in their face.’

Joe didn’t answer, but said to Colleen, loudly, ‘You see what she really is, Colleen? A traitor. Look at poor Nielsen there. That’s what she meant to do to you. Cyanide. You would have been dead by now, like he is.’

Colleen stepped back, well away from both Joe and Nadine, her bathwrap clutched around her as if she had been physically chilled by what she had seen, one breast bare, her hair awry.

‘Nadine Alexander,’ Joe told her, loudly, waving the gun with a flourish. Tn reality, Nadiana Katia Voroshilova, one of the finest sleeping agents of modern times. Said to have been born as the illegitimate daughter of Kliment Voroshilov, who was the titular head of Russia after Stalin’s death; and who is still a symbolic hero from the revolutionary past. Brought to the United States at the age of seventeen, and planted in the Mayhew family, of Back Bay, Boston, as their adopted daughter. First married to the young, energetic president of Sparling Aeronautics; feeding back to the Soviet Union the complete details of some of America’s latest advances in missile guidance. Then, after a discreet affair with General Titus Alexander, and an even more discreet divorce, married to the leading military officer in the US Army and later, of course, to the Secretary of State. Perhaps, next year, to the President. An impressive career. And a very elegant lady. If somewhat dangerous.’

Nadine said, ‘What are you going to do now? I presume that you’ve decided not to kill me.’

That particular option is still open to me, Mrs Alexander,said Joe. His face was white and glossy with sweat. But, right now, I’d prefer to keep you alive. For one thing, I don’t want any trouble with the police. And, for another, I want you to go back and tell the Secretary that everything is fine; and well under control; and that everything you told him about Ikon was nothing more than a Stile bit of left-wing feminist fantasy. Just a way of making him feel bad about stopping the RING talks.’

“You don’t seriously think that I’m going to do that, do you?’ asked Nadine.

Joe lowered the gun. He looked at it, gently released the hammer, and then laid it on the bedroom side-table.

‘Mrs Alexander,he said, taking out his handkerchief, unfolding it, and carefully dabbing the sweat away from his face, ‘this room is fitted with a two-way mirror. Everything you’ve been doing in here with Ms Petley and I mean everything, has been photographed and recorded.’

Nadine looked quickly at Colleen, but Colleen did nothing but shrug in apparent mystification.

‘It was always your weakness, wasn’t it?’ smiled Joe. ‘It was your weakness at school; and later, of course, when you first moved to Boston. That’s right, we have records of what you did at school. The girl’s name was Petya. Remember Petya? She’s married now, lives on a farm in Jasnogorsk. Fat, I shouldn’t wonder, not like the girl she used to be when you fell in love with her. And then there was Charlotte Kane, in Boston. Very pretty, just your type.’

Nadine pressed her hands together in front of her mouth, as if she were thinking deeply, or praying.

Joe said, ‘I don’t really have to threaten you with a gun, do I? If any of this gets out, Titus’ chances of becoming President will evaporate instantly; and any influence you ever had in Washington will evaporate, too. It will have to be the biggest female gay scandal since Billie Jean King. Worse. You won’t get invited to Girl Scout cookouts any more, let alone White House banquets.’

Nadine turned her face away. She should have realized that Joe Jasper had always been too good, or too slimy, to be true. But the Soviet infiltration of American politics was so complex that often it was impossible to tell if you were talking to an infiltrated Russian or not. Self-mockingly - using the title which had once been given to aristocratic administrators both military and civil in the days before Peter the Great - the infiltrators called themselves boyars; and their administration the boyars’ duma. Percy F Nash, the Comptroller of the Currency, was a boyar. So was the Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals, Frank Runcie. The Ikon administration had spread across

the entire breadth of the United States on many different levels; in twenty years it had penetrated thousands of political and bureaucratic offices like an undetected cancer. Often, the head of a government or local department would be ‘straight’, a genuine American, unaware of Ikon’s control; while his subordinates would all be boyars. With particular exceptions, Ikon’s policy had been to extend his influence through the executive stratum, rather than try to replace chairmen and presidents and public figures. And it had all been achieved in almost complete secrecy.

Nadine said, ‘I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t shoot me straight away; and that your simian friend here didn’t manage to inject me.’

‘I doubt if Ikon will be pleased,’ grinned Joe. ‘Come to that, I don’t suppose Kama will be very well pleased, either.’

‘What should I do now?’ asked Nadine.

‘Go home, that’s all. Apologize to Titus for being so hysterical. Explain that it was all a mistake. Then call me, and tell me that it all went well.’

‘You’re quite a rat, you know,’ said Nadine.

Joe raised his hands, as if in surrender. ‘It’s the part I play the best. They trained me for four years at Severo-Zadonsk, where Lee Harvey Oswald was trained. You probably would have liked me before.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Nadine, frostily. ‘As you so rightly point out, my real weakness is for other women.’

Those pictures would fetch a fortune on 42nd Street,’ Joe mocked her. ‘The Lady and the Tramp.’

It was only when Joe moved towards her that Nadine

realized how Colleen Petley had been edging her way

around the bedroom behind him; and how Colleen was

now only a foot away from the table where the revolver

lying. She stared at Colleen and her eyes widened;

but Colleen gave her a stare in return which defied her to

my thing, defied her to do anything but stay where

she was. She looked back at Joe, and Joe was just opening

up his handkerchief again, his face slightly contorted in preparation for blowing his nose, and every split-second seemed like thunder.

Colleen lifted the Magnum off the table, and raised it up in both hands cocking back the hammer as she did so. She took up the stance of an educated shootist, ignoring the way that her bathwrap fell away and revealed her naked body. Nadine half-lifted her hand; Joe flicked up his eyes and saw the expression on her face; and then the Magnum went off with a bang like a jet airplane breaking the sound barrier, and Joe’s pants exploded in a spray of blood and nylon locknit.

Still clutching his handkerchief, shocked, goggle-eyed, Joe looked down at his burst-apart crutch. What remained of his penis dangled by a single shred of flesh; the rest was a crisis of blood and muscle. He said, ‘Wha - ‘ and then Colleen fired again, and this rime the bullet walloped into the back of his head, expanding his face for one fraction of a moment as if it were a Joe Jasper party balloon. Then everything blew apart, and he toppled around sideways, leaving a mist of blood in the air, and a blue twist of gunpowder smoke, and bounced dead on to the bed, and then on to the floor.

Colleen threw the gun down beside him. She made no attempt to fasten her wrap. Nadine stared down at the body; then across at Crack Nielsen; then back at Colleen. ‘It seems as if you’re not everything you’ve been pretending to be, either/ said Nadine.

‘Not all Americans are innocent,’ said Colleen. She gave a wry, quick smile. ‘We’ve known about Ikon for years.’ ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Colleen Petley, that’s all you have to know. I should kill you, too, except that I have specific instructions to make sure that you’re safe. Compromised, but safe.’ ‘Supposing I tried to kill you? I did, after all, didn’t I?’ ‘Yes,’ said Colleen. She ran her hand through her hair, the gesture of somebody who hates what has happened, but has to be resigned to it. ‘Yes, I could be dead by now. So could you. But I suppose that both of us are used to taking risks, in our own particular way.’

‘You belong to some kind of resistance movement? Is that it?’ asked Nadine. ‘You could say that.’

‘Well, we’ve always felt that there might be some kind of organized opposition. I mean, it’s difficult to tell, this country being so naturally violent. But those bombs that were found in Greenwich Village last year - we seriously suspected that they were going to be used against Soviet targets.’