Summit (19 page)

"Is this true?"

The KGB officer—Rylev—appeared at his side. Had he been eavesdropping on the entire conversation? "Borisova's episodes in the hyperspace amplifier are quite stressful," he explained, "and she requires a recovery period after each one. She receives excellent medical attention, however, and there is no evidence that her life is in any danger."

Her eyes moved to Rylev, and it was not difficult to discern the hatred behind her gaze. "Do you disagree with that?" he asked her.

She shrugged again. "I'm not a doctor," she said. "I only know how it makes me feel. And it makes me feel like death."

And then she stood up and walked away from them.

"As you can see, she is very difficult to handle, Comrade Secretary," Rylev murmured. "It's common with people of her type—antisocial, artistic, you understand. She is really the only problem with the entire project."

Grigoriev looked at him. "But without her there is no project," he observed. "And that's your real problem." Then he too strode away from the KGB man.

* * *

"Well, what is your opinion, Pavel Fyodorovich?" Volnikov asked as the Zil sped them back to the Kremlin.

"Most interesting, Igor Ivanovich."

Volnikov laughed. "All right, the scientist is strange, and the girl is even stranger, but you have seen the reports. It works. And what else matters?"

"I don't know," Grigoriev admitted. He had wanted Stashinsky to come with him, but the foreign minister had turned him down. "What's the point?" he had asked. The point was that Stashinsky had suggested the girl be killed in order to prevent Volnikov's project from succeeding, and the least he could do was accompany Grigoriev to view the intended victim. But Stashinsky was uninterested. "The girl seems rather unstable," Grigoriev observed.

"She's stable enough," Volnikov replied. "We have studied her for a long time. We understand her. You're going to the American pianist's recital?"

"Of course."

"She'll be there. Watch her there, if you like. She'll be all right."

"It's not at recitals that she worries me."

Volnikov shrugged. "You have to trust me. I know what I'm doing."

But they both knew he would never trust Volnikov, and that meant there was nothing more to be said. Grigoriev turned away. The Peace Festival, and then the summit with President Winn. He had worked so hard for all of this, and so much depended on it. But it might all collapse because of Valentina Borisova.

And yet he couldn't have her killed. Perhaps he was too weak—Stashinsky would certainly think so. But he had gazed into her eyes and seen her fear, and he knew that he couldn't do it. Volnikov would have to be defeated some other way.

And if Volnikov could not be defeated, Grigoriev wondered what he would do.

Chapter 16

Roderick Williams did not like the NSC guy who had been dumped on him. Colonel Thomas Poole was a little too prim and proper for his taste, and much too nosy. But he supposed it was a small enough price to pay for the problem with Doctor Coyne. Loud had taken care of Coyne's wife, and research on the drug was allowed to continue, although obviously with much stricter safeguards. And in return all Williams had to do was let Poole poke around, ask questions, and sit in on a few meetings.

It was a pain at first. Poole wanted to know everything about Williams's pet operations, from the formula of the drug Coyne had come up with to Daniel Fulton's sex life. Williams had immediately complained to Loud, who for once backed him up. An uneasy compromise had been reached, with Loud the arbitrator if the two of them couldn't agree. That at least kept some things out of the guy's hands.

But it didn't keep him away from meetings like this one with Culpepper, Houghton, and Lawrence Hill. Poole had said relatively little so far about Operation Cadenza, as they had code-named the attempt to get the Russian psychic to defect. Williams hoped he would continue to keep quiet.

"Everything is proceeding as planned," Hill told them. "I'll be leaving for Moscow tomorrow, and I'll talk with Fulton after he meets the girl."

"Doesn't the KGB know you?" Houghton asked.

"Probably, but they'll have no reason to associate me with Fulton. They'll think I'm in Moscow to observe the Peace Festival—I understand we have other Company people there for that very purpose. I'm just going to stay in the embassy and not bother anyone, unless there's a problem."

"Fulton's been cooperating?" Culpepper asked, lighting up a cigarette.

"He's been an angel. We've actually become rather friendly over the past couple of months."

"Does that surprise you?"

Hill shrugged. "I don't know. He seems rather lonely. I think this whole business has, well, energized him—given him a sense of purpose."

"Are you sure he has the same sense of purpose we have?" Colonel Poole asked.

There was brief, uncomfortable silence. "I don't think I understand," Hill replied.

"Isn't it possible that he's being an angel because he's working for the Soviets?"

Hill shook his head. "There's no evidence of that," he said. "We investigated him very carefully before we made our approach. Believe me, we wouldn't have talked to him if we had any doubts. And it doesn't make sense that he's one of theirs. If he were, what would they gain out of his going along with us? All he has to do is turn us down, they guard the girl more closely, and there's nothing we can do."

"I don't pretend to know what the Soviets are up to, Mr. Hill," Poole said. "Maybe they just want to buy some time while we fool around with an operation that doesn't have a chance of success. But the smoothness with which events are proceeding strikes me as very suspicious. I don't like some of the things Fulton has said in the past, and I don't trust him now."

Williams figured he had better respond. It was his job to take care of Poole, not Hill's. "It seems as if you've already caught the occupational disease of excessive suspicion, Tom," he said as genially as he could. "My feeling is that generally, if things are going smoothly, it's because they're going smoothly, not because there's some secret process at work on the other side."

"Also, Colonel," Culpepper said between puffs, "if you're right, the damage has already been done, so there's nothing much to be lost by going ahead with the operation."

Poole shrugged. "All right. But you'd better be on your guard."

"With the Soviets, we're always on our guard," Williams said.

* * *

Hill packed one small suitcase; spies learn to travel light. There was no one to say good-bye to, and that was all right with him.
We're always on our guard.
You let down your guard when you have to say good-bye.

He kept telling himself that there was no need to be nervous, that this operation was no different from any of the others he had carried out over the years. But of course it was, and he knew he had better not fail. And so he felt, well,
something.
Not fear, certainly, and perhaps not nervousness. Maybe just a special kind of excitement. It was pleasant, in a way, but he wasn't doing this to enjoy himself.

He was doing it because nothing was more important in this world.

He shut the door on his drab apartment and headed down to the waiting taxi, the first leg of his journey to Moscow. It felt strange to be going back there after several years in America; strange, but right. There was nowhere else he would rather be at this moment. There Fulton would meet Borisova, and it would begin.

* * *

Fulton sat at the piano as he waited for the limousine that would take him to the airport. It wasn't easy leaving his home and facing the world, alone, undisguised. But he had done it before, and he could do it again. He had to. He was terrified, but he was determined. This might be crazy, but he was going to try.

When he heard the limousine pull up outside, he felt a final twinge of fear. He twisted on the piano bench and looked out through the French doors at the bird feeder, standing empty and forlorn, like a monument marking the remains of his former life. The birds would have to fend for themselves. His hands reached out to the piano keys, and he knew what they wanted to play: the first three solemn chords of
Les Adieux.

Le-be-wohl.

That seemed to be enough. Fulton picked up his suitcases and headed for Moscow.

Part 2

Liebestraum

~

Let patriotism be damned.

—Leon Trotsky

Chapter 17

Daniel Fulton landed at Sheremetyevo Airport in brilliant autumn sunshine. Hershohn was there to meet him, along with a welcoming committee from the Ministry of Culture and a gaggle of reporters. Fulton was polite to everybody, and eventually found himself in a limousine with Hershohn and a square-faced interpreter named Irina who seemed to have attached herself to him.

"No customs?" Fulton asked.

"You are honored guest of the Soviet Union," Irina said. "We dispense with such formalities for our guests." She wore thick glasses and a brown suit; she looked like a piano teacher and talked in Soviet slogans. Fulton assumed she was a spy.

"How are you?" Hershohn asked him. "How was your flight?"

Fulton could tell that Hershohn wasn't simply being polite. "I'm fine," he lied. "Just tired." The limousine pulled out onto a desolate-looking two-lane highway, brightened only by an occasional massive billboard. "The Communist Party of the USSR Welcomes the Representatives of the Peace-Loving Peoples of the World" one said in English and several other languages. "How's the festival going?" he asked.

"Remarkably well," Irina replied. "General Secretary Grigoriev gave a most important speech yesterday, in which he made several important modifications in the Soviet Union's arms-reduction proposals. It was a creative and accommodating response to American objections to the proposals."

"The pressure's on," Hershohn remarked. "President Winn's going to have a tough time if he doesn't reach an agreement with Grigoriev."

"I don't know," Fulton said. "A lot of Americans are calling me a traitor for coming over here. They wouldn't trust Russia no matter what kind of proposals Grigoriev made."