"Don't look at me. I'm no conjure man."
"Resource-wise you are."
"Maybe. I called my boss. He's going to research everybody connected with this."
Tucholski growled, "Bet you five he don't come up with nothing." "No bet."
Cash considered the ruin. "We won't get a thing out of that now. Whoever these people are, they sure do make a habit of burning their bridges before anyone else can cross them."
Streetlights flickered to life.
"Getting dark already," Cash observed.
"The days are getting shorter."
"I just meant that it's been a long day."
He was emotionally and physically exhausted. Nevertheless, he helped a uniformed officer hustle the overaggressive Channel Four news crew back to their own side of the barricades. He couldn't muster a smile when the reporter tried questioning him.
The pop of flashbulbs irritated his eyes and wakened his temper. Why the hell wouldn't they go home?
He spied Annie, Teri, and Tran's wife and sons, waved. Annie and Teri appeared to be getting along.
Back to the Groloch house. The workers had opened a passage into the basement.
They brought Old Man Railsback up first. His clothing had been shredded. His hair was gone. He had lost a hand. His skin was one solid bruise beneath a crust of blood.
The buzzing of the flies stopped only after they zipped the old man into the plastic bag.
Cash giggled half-hysterically at an image of the rescue workers setting him in the alley for the next trash pickup.
That's all we are anyway, he thought. Animated garbage…
Hank and Marylin followed the body into the ambulance.
This is the longest they have been together, without fighting, since they got married, Cash thought. It's a pity that it takes something like this to make them lay down their arms.
He soon wished that Hank hadn't gone. The lieutenant's departure left him responsible, at least for Homicide's interests.
Christ! All he wanted was to go home and crash.
Subsequent hours formed a surreal parade. They left just one memorable impression, near the end. That was the lift he got when somebody below shouted, "Stand by! This one is still breathing." The medical people moved in with their bottles of blood and glucose.
Tran had returned from work by then, and was on hand to walk him home. Neither man spoke. For Cash it was enough to have somebody beside him during that weary march.
He found he had company, Beth was asleep on the couch. Carrie and Nancy were asleep on the parlor carpet, surrounded by their children. Annie snored in a chair. His son Matthew and Le Quyen were talking quietly in the kitchen.
"Matthew! Where'd you come from?"
"Stork brought me, Pop. No. Mom called. I thought I'd better come down."
"Thank you, Le Quyen." Cash accepted a mug of spiced tea. After serving her husband, Le Quyen began fussing over the stove, warming some leftover macaroni and cheese. Norm dropped into the chair she had vacated. "God, what a day."
"You all right?" Matthew asked. "You don't look too good."
"Nothing a week's sleep wouldn't cure. I'm just burned out. Totaled. Don't expect me to make any sense till tomorrow."
XXVI. On the Z Axis;
1973-1977
The days and weeks, though sometimes leaving a brackish taste, flowed swiftly into swamps of years. Four slid past. Michael became convinced he had gotten away with it. He hadn't noted a glimmer of suspicion on the part of any of his associates.
There was no shortage of work, of study, of training. From his Peking office he now commanded the director's entire American operation. It was growing, perfectly, into a gem of the spymaster's art. Webs were being spun tight about an unsuspecting fascist America; the crisis was coming on almost too swiftly for belief.
At Huang's insistence Michael undertook one foreign field operation each year, under deep cover. The missions were supposed to keep him in touch with his Occidental roots. He suspected they were intended to test his reliability more than as training or to accomplish anything,
Twice he ventured into the Soviet Union, first to Kiev, to confer with radical elements in the Ukrainian Party, then to Moscow itself, where he helped transfer certain damning Soviet documents to the custody of the U.S. Embassy. He did his work quickly and carefully, and made the most of the opportunities to see strange lands and peoples. For security reasons he didn't get much chance to see Peking. Caucasians attracted too much attention.
His third venture took him to Prague. It was the spring of seventy-five, and this was a more significant mission. He was supposed to collect a lengthy document outlining anti-Soviet feeling in the Czechoslovak Party. Certain officials, admirers and adherents of Alexander Dubcek, were preparing the report in hopes of enlisting Chinese support for an anti-Soviet move.
Michael's contact was a young woman from Interior Ministry, a comer in the Party. While he fretted through countless delays-the streets seemed curb to curb with KGB-and wrestled anxieties about how his office might be managing in his absence, the lady showed him Prague. And in the shadow of the castle of the Bohemian kings he fell in love with both.
Old Prague was a beautiful city, a fairy-tale city. Ilse was a beautiful woman, a fairy-tale princess, a socialist Cinderella. And the most remarkable wonder was that she fell as madly as he. That he could be loved that way, without reservation, as madly as he himself could love, would amaze him as long as he lived.
The hopelessness of their affair only intensified it. They tried to cram an entire relationship into a few short weeks.
Michael was tempted to betray his trust. And Ilse offered to go to Peking. But once the report changed hands, once the moment for decisions arrived, neither could abandon an appointed pathway. They made violent love throughout a night. Michael made promises he had no hope of keeping. Then he took the report to Peking.
He nursed a hope that, soon, he would feel safe enough to ask Huang's intercession in behalf of his romance.
Moves had to be made. His past had to be secured. The Snake thing couldn't be left ready to hang him at any instant.
Michael's office occupied a backwater of a bureaucratic niche midway between Huang and Sung's more orthodox intelligence command. While he suffered interferences from both, Michael enjoyed a great deal of freedom. His department wasn't on the table of organization; no one knew quite how to handle him. Moreover, his small MIA corps were more loyal to him and one another than to their adopted masters. Michael had the elbow room and means to undertake small actions on his own initiative. And now he had initiative.