Colleen walked around Joe Jasper’s body and stood silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘We started off as rebels against America. You know that, don’t you? Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Army. We wanted to see an end to capitalism and the absolute death of prejudice. Then we realized that this country we were fighting against wasn’t the country we believed it to be. Our Presidents were puppets; our whole way of life was a carefully-preserved sham. And nobody seemed to understand - or if they did understand, to care\ \one of us knows how it happened, or when exactly; but we guess that it was some time in the ‘60s. And America went on producing Playboy, and Cadillacs, and The Wai-tons; but not in the same way as it had before. Something happened in the ‘60s, and it was like national shock; the same sort of shock that a human body suffers when you shoot a bullet into it. An alien intrusion, you know? Something that sends shudders to every quarter of your body, down to your toes. That intrusion was Ikon. And as soon as we found out what it was all about, we amalgamated ourselves together, Black Panthers and Weather Underground and all, and we made up our minds that you bastards weren’t going to get away with it, not easily, anyhow; and that if nobody else was going to carry the torch for liberty, then we would. We call ourselves Free Columbia. You know?’
‘You’re a terrorist,’ said Nadine.
‘Of a kind. This is the first time I’ve ever killed anybody.’
‘But all this blackmail business with Marshall Roberts
… you don’t mean to tell me that it was all planned by you … by whatever you call yourselves, Free Columbia?’ ‘We were almost duped ourselves/ said Colleen. She sat down on the end of the bed, well away from Joe’s twisted body. ‘We had girls going to bed with as many candidates as we possibly could at the last election; and all of their sessions were filmed. The idea was that we would try to blackmail whichever candidate was elected President, and see what kind of response we got; see what defence mechanisms we could flush out into the open; see if any heads popped up that we could shoot at.’
She was silent for what seemed like whole minutes. Then she said, ‘I had to set myself as a real Las Vegas hooker. Can you imagine that? I had to invent a background, find myself a pimp, and be a hooker. I think it probably wiped me out as far’as men are concerned. I think forever. That was why I made love with you … well, not totally. I did want to put you into a position where you’d be forced to let me go out now and again, so that I could go out and rendezvous with other people from Free Columbia.’
She paused again, and then she said, ‘We didn’t realize that there was such an internal struggle within the Soviet administration. We didn’t know anything about Kama, or the Peredoviki. We simply thought that Joe Jasper wanted to get hold of our videotapes and photographs and destroy them, to protect the President. That’s what he said he wanted to do. We thought we’d be doing nothing more than flushing out a few Soviet infiltrators, so that we could waste them.’
Another pause. Then, ‘Kama would be worse than Ikon, wouldn’t he? Kama would rip this country apart from top to bottom.’
That’s right, ‘ said Nadine. ‘Kama would be hell. Back to the days of the Terror.’
Colleen looked at her questioningly. ‘What are you going to do now? Are you going to try to persuade Titus to let RING continue?’
‘I doubt if he’ll listen. I’ve told him far more than I should have done.’
‘But surely he’ll take notice of what you’re saying if you tell him about the Peredoviki?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Colleen suddenly realized that she had left the gun lying on the carpet, right beside Joe Jasper’s body. And she also realized that if Nadine was so deeply pessimistic about her chances of persuading Titus to let RINC go ahead, there was only one positive way left to her to release Titus’ grip on Marshall Roberts, and make sure that the disarmament talks went ahead. To kill Titus’ principal witness - her. And after all, hadn’t Nadine come here this morning with the intention of killing her anyway?
There was a flash of recognition between the two women that was almost electrical, like the crackling current of a Van der Graaf generator. Both of them dived towards the gun at the same time; Nadine snatching the grip, but Colleen slapping it out of her hand so that it tumbled heavily across the room.
They wrestled fiercely on the floor, Nadine twisting Colleen’s hair and forcing her head back. But as Nadine tried to reach out again for the gun, Colleen grabbed at her white skirt, and wrenched it, and there was a tearing of cotton and silk lining. Beneath her skirt, Nadine wore nothing but a white lacy garter-belt and white stockings, and Colleen tore her skirt away even further as she rolled her over and pushed her violently against the bed. Colleen scrabbled for the gun now, but Nadine threw herself on top of her, and for minutes on end the two women struggled and scratched and tore at each other. They didn’t scream, like women fighting out of jealousy or anger. They both knew that only one of them was going to survive.
Abruptly, Colleen banged her head against the bridge of Nadine’s nose. Nadine jerked back in pain, and that moment was all that Colleen needed. She wriggled her
naked body out from between the tight clench of Nadine’s silk-stockinged thighs, and grasped the gun.
Nadine held on to Colleen’s wrist with both hands, keeping the gun in the air. Colleen fired once, and the bullet hit the ceiling and showered them both in stucco. They fought and rolled on to Joe Jasper’s body, smothering their arms in his blood; then rolled back again across the white carpet, leaving gory tracks. Gasping, Nadine pressed her head close against Colleen’s bare, sweaty breasts, and gritted her teeth, and tried to summon up every last strain of energy
But gradually, in a series of gasping jerks, Colleen brought the gun across her chest so that the muzzle was pointing less than an inch away from Nadine’s head. Nadine grunted with strain, but the muzzle was so close now that she could smell the burned gunpowder. She was flooded with the terrifying understanding that she was just about to die.
She did the only thing she could think of. She pushed back against Colleen’s gun-wrist as forcefully as possible, and buried her teeth deep into Colleen’s nipple. She tasted blood, a sudden mouthful of it, and realized with shock as Colleen screamed that she had actually bitten it right off. There was a brief, bloody wrestle. Nadine wrenched the gun out of Colleen’s hand, staggered back from her, and pointed it directly at her head.
Colleen’s face was like a mask of herself. She said something like, ‘Whatever you do - ‘ and then Nadine pulled the trigger and Colleen’s head exploded like a can of red paint.
Slowly, stiffly, Nadine stood up. She stayed where she was for a while, shivering. Then she walked with dragging feet into the living-room, and sat down on the sofa. Apart from the chambermaid in Nevada, Titus’ attempts to blackmail Marshall Roberts were finished; and it was unlikely that the chambermaid’s testimony would satisfy a Congressional committee. The videotapes were all here, in the house, in a floor safe which Joe Jasper had arranged to be installed at the same time as Colleen’s hot tub.
She reached for the phone beside the sofa, and dialled Ikon’s action number. A calm woman’s voice answered her, and said, ‘How can I help you?.’
This is A matter of utmost urgency. Do you understand that? There’s been an incident at the Rockville house. Three down with severe headaches. I need clean-people, also a locksmith. And the first priority is to call our contacts at the Rockville police to keep them away. Somebody must have heard the firecrackers.’
is that all?’ asked the woman’s voice, unruffled.
Xadine looked down at her blood-smeared hand, and her torn skirt.
That’s all,’ she said.
She put down the phone. She sat with her head bent while the clock ticked loudly and cheaply over the fireplace. Then, she began to weep; silent tears at first, followed by deep, agonized sobs.
Twenty-Six
Ikon met Kama at the Smithsonian Institution, in front of the black-painted X-15 aircraft; and they solemnly shook hands. Neither man was alone: there were two dark-suited young bodyguards following Ikon at a discreet but A atchful distance; and a man in a grey houndstooth jacket fallowing Kama. Ikon wore a camelhair overcoat, even in the summer heat, and looked heavy and unwell. Kama was leaner, taller, and younger, although his head was pletely bald and he wore magnifying spectacles which enlarged his bright blue eyeballs until they looked like those miniature globes which schoolchildren use for pencil-sharpeners.
It was the first time that Ikon had been out for a month, and he was already coughing and labouring for breath. But there was an understanding now that he and Kama could only meet on neutral territory; the rift in the Supervisory Committee was too wide and too intricately stratified for Ikon to be able to assert his authority across it. He had long ago begun to lose his strongest supporters in the Kremlin; either through death, or old age, or political unpopularity; or through desertion. Kama, after all, was the younger and the stronger man. Kama had powerful contacts in the international KGB and the Central Committee. And, what was more, Kama was ferociously dedicated to the idea of publicly announcing that the United States had been overthrown by Russia, almost to the point of obsession. The American Capitalist Oblast is ours,’ he used to repeat. ‘It has been ours for twenty years. We should treat it as ours.’
Ikon thrust his hands into his coat pockets and contemplated the black slender shape of the X-15. ‘America’s first thrust into space,’ he said. ‘Even before we took over. You have to admire their technology.’
Kama gave a non-committal nod. Ikon was still the titular head of the committee; and Kama wasn’t rash enough to disagree with him outright. Kama’s whole political career had nearly collapsed in 1961 when he had expressed out loud his support for Khruschev’s isolation of China. Even Khruschev had refused to support him; and it was only his friendship with Leonid Brezhnev that had saved him from permanent exile.
The two men walked side by side through the echoing museum. In the next hall, a party of black schoolchildren were giggling and shuffling as their teacher tried to show them around. The light that filtered through the windows had a strangely wintry quality, as if they were back in Moscow.
Kama said, ‘It was good of you to come out and meet me here. I thought it more discreet.’
‘Occasionally, I can benefit from the exercise,’ said Ikon.
Kama gave a tepid smile. ‘You’re thinking of retiring soon, of course.’
‘As soon as I’m convinced that the American Oblast is in capable hands. And as soon as I’m sure that RING II is near completion.’
Kama said, ‘You’ll have to forgive me, Nikolai Nekrasov, but I do think that these RING talks are an unnecessary pretence. I may be naive, of course. You’re so much wiser and more experienced. But what is the use of them, when no American nuclear warhead is capable of being fired? America is already disarmed. Why make such trouble over nuclear reduction talks?’
Ikon raised one bushy, bear-like eyebrow. ‘You have a great deal to learn about social psychology, Comrade Kama. A whole nation cannot be dragged kicking and screaming into a new philosophical age, not without grave repercussions that can last for decades afterwards. The Soviet Union is a classic example. We have still to recover from the October revolution morally, or politically, or economically. It will take a hundred years before we do.’
‘That sounds remarkably like heresy,’ smiled Kama.
‘Heresy is usually nothing more than the simple truth,’ Ikon retorted.
They jousted and prodded at each other for another ten minutes; and then Ikon suggested they leave the Institution and take a walk outside. He felt trapped, and suffocated, as much by Kama’s relentless opportunism as he did by.the Smithsonian. They crossed Jefferson Drive and then walked across the grass of The Mall, towards the Washington Monument, while red and white kites flew around them, and traffic nudged and beeped and growled on either side like a herd of impatient cattle.
Kama said, ‘You’ve heard, of course, that Marshall Roberts has decided to postpone the RING talks?’
Ikon checked his watch. Colleen Petley should be dead by now. He had no guarantee of it, of course. Nadine may have run into difficulties with Joe Jasper. But she was an efficient, elegant woman, an extraordinary agent, the very cream of the KGB. There hadn’t been a female agent
to touch her since Maria Denisova, who had used her sexual abilities to turn the tables against both Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta, and had later supplied Moscow with some of the most important details of the hydrogen bomb.
Ikon said, ‘I believe that the President had some temporary difficulty, yes.’
Temporary? If RINC II fails to go ahead, the Sovietization of America could be put back for ten years.’ ‘ ‘You exaggerate,’ said Ikon. ‘Perhaps five.’ ‘Nikolai Nekrasov, it is essential that the Soviet Union asserts her authority over America now. America is still too much of a corrupting influence; American culture is like rabies, driving everybody mad. The whole world will be mad until America is revealed to be subordinate to Moscow - until everybody realizes that political sanity has at last prevailed.’
‘You want a national massacre?’ asked Ikon, brushing back his windswept hair with his hand.
‘Of course not, although a certain amount of spilled blood will be unavoidable. America is full of lunatics who say that they would rather die than let the Soviet Union take over. Better dead than Red. But once most of them perceive the conquest as a fait accompli … well, I truly don’t believe that we will experience half the trouble you seem to think we will. The Americans are a tired nation, Nikolai Nekrasov; the fire has gone out of their veins, and has been replaced by cholesterol. Now they want to do nothing else but sit down in front of their television sets and be left alone.’
Ikon paused. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen one of his bodyguards begin to walk diagonally towards him across the grass. The man turned away when he was still fifteen or twenty paces distant; and went with exaggerated thoroughness to peer into a pale blue Chrysler which somebody had parked nearby on a red line.