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“You must capitulate,” Andrei said. “The Chinese have already begun to withdraw their bluff. They saw it was not working.”
“They need to be taught their lesson, don’t they.”
“The remedy is worse than the disease.”
The back of Rykov’s hand struck his cigarette and showered sparks over his chest. “In any case I’ve been discredited, I’m officially out of office—I haven’t much to lose, have I? One who is already in disgrace can easily afford to indulge his principles.”
He tried to catch some hint of expression on Andrei’s cheeks. Andrei only said, “If I fail to persuade you to abort, of course it means my own head.”
“There are worse things than death, Andrei. As the proverb has it, it is simpler to die than to live.”
“Seventy-four minutes,” Andrei said. “And it will require about twenty minutes for your signal to be relayed to Belsky and for Belsky to act upon it. Say fifty minutes.”
“I am a patriot, Andrei.” Rykov sighed with the hopelessness of a failure beyond his power to correct: it was the first time he had ever faced anything too big for him and the knowledge was bleak. “I am a patriot.”
“One of your difficulties, Andrei, is that you are constantly thinking about the rules of the game without ever asking whether the game itself has meaning. You ca
When he rinsed his mouth and returned to the desk he said, “An insufficiency of fortitude. I never suspected it of myself.”
“No one envies you your dilemma,” Andrei said. “My dear Viktor, please see the truth of it. The Chinese are not ready for war. You would kill millions—tens of millions, hundreds of millions. You would risk destroying Mother Russia—destroying the earth.”
“There will be war, Andrei—war with China is inevitable. Best it be done now when we have the opportunity to win.”
“I have no cigarettes left.”
“I will get you a packet as soon as you have signaled Belsky.”
“Don’t be childish, Andrei.”
“I have no time left for patience. Thirty-eight minutes, Viktor.”
“Will you take my place at this desk in the morning?”
“In the morning if I am alive I shall retire to the country to farm.”
“The boredom will get on your nerves.”
“If you blow up the world, Viktor, we shall all be eternally bored.”
“Twelve minutes, Viktor. If my watch is not slow.”
“Why do you press me when you know I have won after all?”
“Because I believe that in the end like me you are a human being. To destroy other human beings is human. To destroy one’s entire species is not. If I have love for you it is because of your humanity, not your political strategies.”
“And what is it that you think makes me such a humanitarian in the end?”
“Your love for me, Viktor.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Lincoln skittered around the bend into Park Avenue, taking the curve too fast; it weaved violently on its springs. The tug pulled Forrester hard over against the rear right-hand door and Ro
Spode was driving. “It may be too damn late.”
“You’ve got time,” Ramsey Douglass said. “Floor it.”
Forrester’s watch read six-ten. It was more than a mile to the airport.
Spode slowed for a red light at Ajo Road but nothing was in sight on the crossroad and Spode gu
Spode took his foot off the gas and pulled off the road in the shade. “Half-mile walk from here.”
“I’ll make it.” Douglass opened the door but Spode pointed the pistol at him and Douglass nodded wearily. “All right. He’s sitting in a parked Oldsmobile on the Nogales Highway right across the road from the Matthewson-Ward front gate. I picked the spot for him because you get a good reception there and it’s only a mile from here.”
Spode said, “If he ain’t there we’ll know where to get our hands on the rest of you.”
“I’m trusting you.”
“Yeah,” Spode said dubiously.
Douglass got out of the car and Spode hit the accelerator and left him standing flatfooted by the side of the road. They broke out past the cottonwoods with the speedometer needle quivering toward eighty. “Time’s it?”
Forrester had been watching Douglass cross the road and dog-trot along the shoulder in the low lancing sunlight. He looked at his watch and said. “Fourteen after six.”
“Jesus.”
A little more than an hour before, Orozco’s men had picked up Douglass’ Volkswagen coming out of the Davis Monthan gate. They had forced him off the road and taken him at gunpoint.
They had held Douglass in the bricked-in back lot of a motorboat dealership on Twenty-second Street. Forrester and Ro
Top had put his gun on Douglass and told the two operatives they could go: they weren’t to know what it was about.
Forrester had started without preamble: “Tell us where Belsky is.”
“Belsky?”
Spode said, “Dangerfield.”
“Sure,” Douglass said.
Forrester told him, “You’re finished anyway. You may as well.”
Why? Because this bitch has blown my cover?” Jittery or not he had absorbed a great deal very quickly. He wasn’t even asking questions about Ro
“If Belsky goes through with it now the United States will know Moscow was behind it. You see that, don’t you? The United States will a
Clearly Douglass hadn’t thought of that. His face changed slowly; a creeping pallor drained his cheeks. But then he scowled and stabbed a finger toward Ro
She appeared almost drowsy; she only shook her head, mute, and Forrester said, “Dead.”
“How?”
“Accident,” Forrester answered.
“That’s why she went over to you?”
Ro
Douglass’ head shook like a metronome. After a moment Top Spode said, “Not much time. I’ll have to start prying him open.”
Douglass looked up with a glance of petty irritation. “You could try.” Then a crafty new thought tightened his face. “Listen—what’s in this for me, then?”
They had discussed that earlier. Spode wanted to lock him up, muzzle him until it was all done, but Forrester had vetoed it: They’re expecting him to show up. If he doesn’t they’ll get jumpy and God knows what they might decide to do.
Spode had objected: Outside of Ro
But Forrester had an answer to that. Douglass could hardly finger him without raising suspicion against himself: Forrester wouldn’t have turned Douglass loose unless Douglass talked—that was the way Belsky would see it. No; Douglass wasn’t going to say anything about Forrester. And anyhow if Forrester did reach Belsky then Belsky would know; so Douglass offered no threat to anyone but himself.
Douglass asked again, “What’s in it for me?”
“Give us Belsky,” Forrester answered. “We’ll turn you loose. You can escape on the plane with the rest of them.”