“You want to go. don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. moving with her. occasionally breaking their rhythm with a jab.
“I want it very much. But I don’t want to leave you.”
“You’ll be back.” she said. and her voice rose to a little cry.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be back. I’ll be back for you.”
“Promise me.”
“I’ll be back.”
They came together. Later, instead of dinner, they made love again, then again.
When Helder woke the next morning, Trina was gone.
Almost immediately, there was a firm knock on his door, and he scrambled for a robe. Mr. Jones came swiftly into the room.
“Ah, good morning, Mr. Swenson,” he said, cheerfully.
“I’ve come to help you pack.” He held up a large, clear plastic envelope.
“Everything goes into this. You are to take two complete changes of clothing, one pair of shoes, and the personal effects and weapon issued you.”
He held up two ammunition clips, then dropped them into the bag.
“You are now armed. See that you don’t get into any difficulty which requires more than thirty rounds of ammunition,” he grinned. He held up a small plastic envelope.
“Here we have what you are to use should you get into such a situation. You tear open the envelope and find inside a short length of pliable, pink material. You put it into your mouth, pressing between your upper gum and cheek; it will stick there indefinitely, without deteriorating.
In extreme conditions, you pluck it loose, bite firmly into it, and swallow. You will lose consciousness almost immediately, and you will be dead shortly afterwards. Absolutely painless; in fact, quite pleasant, I’m told. Never tried it myself,” he chuckled.
“Now strip off. I have to oversee your packing and dressing.”
Helder stripped and got into a light running suit and shoes. He packed a tweed jacket, a blazer, two pairs of trousers, underwear, and socks. Jones watched closely as he chose his toilet items and packed everything into a parachute nylon duffel. Jones went to the desk, retrieved a drawing pad, the Rapidograph drawing pen, and Helder’s wallet. He checked the driver’s license and credit cards carefully, then held up a slip of paper.
“Here’s a receipt from a Chinese laundry on Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village.” From an inside pocket he took an American passport and opened it.
“Nice photo, eh? Sign the passport.”
Helder signed the passport, then flipped through its pages, glancing at the stamps.
“I arrived in Sweden today?”
“Correct; first trip abroad,” Jones said.
Helder packed the passport, wallet, and drawing materials into his duffel, then Jones dropped the bag into the large plastic envelope and closed it with a zipper.
“There you are, Carl Swenson,” he said.
“Shall we go?”
Helder left with Jones in Majorov’s golf cart; they drove down the hillside to the camouflaged submarine pens. The guards waved them through the gates, and Jones maneuvered the cart into the cavernous shed and stopped. Majorov came to greet them.
“Good morning, Swenson.” he said, smiling broadly.
“I see Jones has prepared you.”
“Indeed he has, sir.” Helder replied.
“I feel like a new man.”
“Good, good, now come and see your cargo.” Majorov led the way across the shed and down a flight of concrete steps to the Juliet class sub. The forward doors were open, the Type Four mini sub had been backed into the hold, and before it sat the squat, cylindrical navigation buoy, somewhat larger in diameter than the dummy Helder had been training with. Instead of steel, like the dummy, its surface was of a dull, plastic-looking material, one he had not seen before. There were brackets on either side to accept the grapplers from the mini sub
Helder was worried by the difference in size from the dummy.
“How much does it weigh?” he asked.
Majorov looked momentarily irritated.
“About sixty kilos more than the dummy. I trust you can handle it.”
Helder wasn’t at all certain that he could. He felt that the Type Four had been working at the outer limits of its control functions on the last exercise. He couldn’t be certain, of course, until he actually worked with the real buoy, and Majorov seemed in no mood for delays. He was about to reply when Valeric Sokolov’s voice came from behind him.
“There will be no difficulties. Colonel,” she said, firmly.
Helder turned and glared but did not speak to her.
“I think I can handle it, sir,” he said.
“Fine,” Majorov replied.
“Now, let’s get on with it.
Sokolov, do the brackets and grapplers mate properly?”
“Yes, Colonel. All is well.”
“Get the buoy loaded, then.”
Sokolov waved to three men in coveralls standing near, and they came and began manhandling the heavy object toward the grapplers of the mini sub Helder noticed, for the first time, that they were wearing yellow radiation badges, the type that turned blue if it received a significant dosage. He thought that spent uranium 235, with which Majorov had said the buoy was ballasted, would not require such care, but, he supposed, he could not quarrel with caution. Sokolov entered the Type Four and manipulated the grapplers until they mated with the buoy’s brackets.
Then, using the sub’s power, plus the muscles of the three men, they lifted the buoy into its position, just under the ports through which Helder would see out of the sub.
Under water, the extra buoyancy would enable the grapplers alone to maneuver the buoy. Helder hoped so, anyway.
Sokolov came out of the sub, and the doors of the Juliet whined shut. The sub’s skipper came up to Majorov and saluted.
“We are ready to proceed. Colonel,” he said.
“Excellent, Captain,” Majorov smiled. He turned to Helder and took his hand.
“Well, Helder,” he said warmly, “now you are ready to do what you have been trained for.
I know you will do it well.” Majorov glanced at Sokolov and squeezed Holder’s hand slightly.
“Remember all of your instructions.”
“I remember. Colonel,” Helder replied.
“Thank you for this opportunity.”
“Good luck, Sokolov,” Majorov said, shaking her hand.
Helder and Sokolov followed the sub’s skipper onto its decks, and two men removed the narrow gangplank. They climbed to the conning tower and stood as the sub backed out of its berth. As she backed around and turned her bows toward the lake and the Baltic beyond, Helder caught sight of an oddly familiar figure standing on the concrete jetty, wearing the uniform of a captain, first grade, chatting with Majorov. Helder was jolted by the sight and at first thought he must be mistaken. Then. as the man turned in profile to say something to Majorov, Helder knew he was right.
They had been in sub school together and occasionally had bumped into each other at Murmansk and other sub ports over the years. His name was Gushin, and he was now one of the most famous—or rather, infamous officers in the Soviet navy. In October of 1981, he had run a Whiskey class submarine aground near a secret Swedish naval base.
For a week the sub had remained caught there, while diplomatic negotiations went on between the Swedes and the Soviets over the fate of the sub and its crew. Finally, the Soviets had permitted a limited inspection of the sub by the Swedes, and it had been towed off the ground and had made its way home, escorted by Soviet ships.
Every Soviet naval officer knew the story, knew more than just the terse stories in fzvestia and the military newspapers. Gushin had been stripped of his rank, discharged dishonorably from the Soviet Navy, and given a long prison term at hard labor in the Gulag. His name was a synonym for what could happen to an incompetent naval officer. Yet, here he was, in the uniform of a full captain, chatting amiably with the commander in charge of Soviet submarine operations in Swedish waters. Helder climbed down the conning tower ladder of the Juliet and stood, baffled, as the sub’s skipper ordered her crew to dive.
Just what the hell was going on here? RULE left her house Sunday morning, drove to I f National Airport, and took the Eastern shuttle JL to New York. She was excited about her meeting with Malakhov and unconcerned with her rearview mirror. Shortly before the plane landed in New York, she got up to go to the John, and, halfway down the aisle, stopped in her tracks. Sleeping in a window seat, snoring lightly, was the man who had been following her. The goon. She stood for a few seconds and got a good look at him, grinding the features into her memory. Five-nine or ten. she estimated, heavyset—maybe one ninety—pale complexion with some old pockmarks, poor haircut, nearly bald on top, wearing a wash-and-wear summer suit, fortyfivish, typical of the sort of drone that did the dirty work in Washington’s East European embassies. He probably had poor teeth and bad dental work. She briefly entertained the idea of taking the empty seat next to him and scaring hell out of him when he woke up, but she continued to the washroom.
At La Guardia she hit the terminal moving fast. She had a little more than an hour to lose the tail and connect with a New England Air flight to Burlington, and she wanted to get into the taxi queue as far ahead of him as possible. It didn’t work. As her cab drove away, she saw him handing the cab starter money, and the next man in line miming rage at the queue-jumper. She considered giving her driver a thrill by telling him to lose the cab behind, but she didn’t want to let her tail know she knew he was there.
“Metropolitan Museum,” she said.
Traffic was light, and they were there in under half an hour. She trotted up the broad steps to the museum and inside, not bothering to look behind her. She knew he would be there. She flashed her membership card at the members’ desk and got an entry badge. He, she felt fairly certain, would not be a member and would be forced into the public ticket line. She walked quickly past the guard into the central hallway, then turned quickly to her right, into the museum shop, and waited. The public line must have been long, she thought: nearly five minutes passed before she saw his reflection in a showcase, bolting down the hallway into the Sunday throngs. She gave him fifteen seconds to become hopelessly confused, then walked through the shop and out of the museum. It had been stupid of him to follow her into the place. He should have waited at the front door: there was only one entrance. She caught a cab discharging a woman and three small children and was back at La Guardia in another half-hour, making sure the goon didn’t have a partner tailing her. On the plane, she took deep breaths and tried to cool off. Had she not been able to shake the tail. she’d have missed her flight to Burlington and her appointment with Malakhov.
At Burlington, she rented a car and headed for Stowe, timing the drive nicely. She passed the scarred mountainsides that were ski runs in winter, passed pseudo-alpine motels that looked closed for the summer. She found the road south; when the Texaco station came into view, she pulled over and waited until a minute to three, then drove the last few hundred yards to the station and pulled in.
Hers was the only car in the place. She got out of the car and filled the tank. which didn’t take long, considering it was three-quarters full, looking up and down the highway for her contact. The road was strangely empty. She walked into the station and paid for the gasoline; when she got back to the car, there was a yellow Jeep wagon idling at the roadside. Ed Rawls was at the wheel. With no sign of recognition, he pulled away and drove south. She scrambled into her car and pulled away after him, keeping as far back as she could and still keep him in sight. Three or four miles further south, he turned left onto a graveled road, and she followed, marveling that, in the five or six minutes of their drive, she saw no other vehicle. Midsummer Sundays in skiing country were quiet, she thought.
Rawls turned left again, then right, and shortly pulled off the road into the paved forecourt of a schoolhouse, an archetypal New England, little red schoolhouse, with a weather-vaned belfry and white trim. From a quarter mile down the road Rule saw him get out of the wagon and go into the school. She drove into the forecourt, parked next to the Jeepster, and got out of the car. It was hot, sunny, and still. The weathervane atop the building pointed east, unmoving. The front door was ajar, and Rule stepped inside. A short hallway led her past a closed door and into the single schoolroom. It became obvious that the building was no longer a school. There was a raised stage to her right, which instead of a teacher’s desk, now held a modern kitchen. The open floor of the schoolroom now held a dozen pieces of comfortable-looking, if dowdy, upholstered furniture. The blackboards around the room were still in place, and there was a potbellied wood stove in one corner. Her eyes were drawn back to the kitchen stage by the sound of a refrigerator door opening. Ed Rawls bent over and peered at the lower shelves.
“Want a beer?” he called.
“Got anything diet?”
He walked across the stage toward her, carrying a green beer bottle and a can of Diet Coke.
“You wired?” he asked, coming down the steps to the main floor and handing her the soft drink.
“Nope.”
“Good. You can’t take any notes, either. Leave your bag here, and listen, Kate, this is deep background; you can’t use anything you get here in any report or conversation at the agency, you understand that.”