Valentia was wedged into an armchair with her hips squeezing out under its arms. She had waxy yellow skin and the flat-cheeked, eye-folded face of her Chinese ancestors. It was no longer possible to detect any similarity between her features and Anya’s but the lovely Anya was in fact her daughter.
“I want you both to go to Peking,” Rykov said.
The fat face stirred. “Must we?”
He made no answer and she said, “It is such a distressing town, Peking. I despise it.”
“Is it so much worse than this?”
“At least here we are among friends. I’m getting old—I no longer take the pleasure I once did from adventures.”
“Your mission will be suitably sedentary. If acrobatics are required Anya can execute them.”
“Is there no one else who could be sent? There must be others.”
“There are no others.”
“Nonsense.”
“You’re disagreeable and you don’t want the job. That’s precisely why it must be your job, Valentia. You will not be eager to please me and therefore you won’t tell me lies that you think will please me. You are the only agent I can trust not to color things subjectively—not to ask the wrong questions and thus get answers different from what is before you.” He added, “You have a choice, of course. You can refuse the mission and be shot. Or you can bungle the mission and be shot.”
“Yes, of course, there’s always that choice.”
“Papers for both of you are waiting in Ussuriysk. You’ll go in by the Chinese Eastern Railway, change at Harbin and entrain for Yingkow. From there you’ll find your own transportation to Peking. You’ve done it before, you know the ropes. You’re a Chinese from Mukden trying to drum up machinery for a voluntary farm-labor project and Anya is your daughter whom you have brought with you to charm the proper officials into parting with the necessary machinery. Her function in life is to be thrust at men by her domineering mother. I trust you won’t find the role too hard to play.”
“Your sarcasm is always entertaining, Ivan.”
“If you cross paths with any of our people tell them that you’re swimming to avoid an illness. That’s your legend, don’t deviate from it; we don’t want our people knowing what you’re doing. You understand? Particularly you’re to avoid contact with neighbor GRU and Fourth Bureau agents. Your mission is private and you will report to no one except me, directly.”
“Report how? And on what?”
“Patience, Valentia. You will collect your things from the cobbler in Ussuriysk, and when you reach Peking you will make contact with Chug Li and obtain from him a music box.” A music box was a microwave wireless transceiver; a cobbler was a provider of false documentation.
He added, “Chug will complain, he’ll try to find out what you’re up to. Don’t let him learn anything.”
“Isn’t he trusted?”
“As much as anyone out there is trusted. Nothing is certain.”
“Not even Anya and me.” She smiled slightly and the little eyes disappeared into folds. “Go on, then.”
“Behind the Amergrad dascha there is an incinerator for human bodies. You may recall it.”
“Yes.”
“Then be trustworthy, Valentia. There’s a lot of meat on you and it would stink a great deal. Let’s have no more complaining.”
“I complain to pass the time, dear Ivan, until you see fit to tell us what it is we are to do in Peking.”
“You’re vexing tonight.”
“Such flattery,” she said.
“About the music box. Chug has instructions to equip you with a high-speed recorder-player and a transmitter of sufficient power to reach Moscow at night. You know the frequency. You’ll code your reports according to the command manual, not the field manual, and you’ll put them on tape and broadcast them in ultra-high-speed bursts at thirteen minutes past the hour and thirty-seven minutes past the hour. Are you getting all this?”
“I shall memorize it all and throw my head away.”
“Long-range direct communication is a risk but I must have it. The China data coming from the field pass through channels and intermediaries before reaching me. At each step it is reinterpreted and abridged. An error at any point can be magnified enormously before it gets to me and I can’t have any more of that, things are too taut now.”
“What things?”
She was bemused; a little smile hovered on the bloated lips.
He shocked her out of it: “I think they’re ready to attack us with their missiles.”
With the corner of his eye he saw Anya sit up straighter. Valentia watched him from the depths of her clever eyes and said, “I should have known you wouldn’t have flown all this way for anything trivial.”
“Now I have your attention, do I?”
“Go on, Ivan.”
“Everything points to it. They’ve whipped up a war psychosis and they’re planning in terms of a preemptive first strike. They may be ready to launch it at any time. I need confirmation or denial and, in the case of confirmation, date and time and primary targets.”
The huge engorged body lifted and fell with breath.
He said, “The reports I’ve been receiving have filtered through intermediaries who know my feelings about the Maoists—it’s possible the intermediaries have been telling me what they think I want to hear, not what is actually true. Obviously I must be certain. That’s your job.”
“To get this kind of information I will have to take many risks.”
“You mean Anya will.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Our profession isn’t noted for its longevity.” He made an impatient gesture, like a short judo chop against the air. “Valentia, don’t spar with me, there’s no time for it. You must be on your way. I came here personally to impress on you the gravity of this thing. The lives of millions of Russians may depend on you.”
“Rhetoric doesn’t impress me, Ivan, you know that. Tell me precisely what you want so that we can get on with it.”
“I want you to bug them, of course.”
“Them?”
“Fei, Shen, Jiou, Chug Po, An Tu, Lo Kai-teh, Yuan, Sun Shih—the Cabinet delegates to the Congress in Peking. They’re already gathering now. The meeting was called hastily which means there should be larger gaps in security than usual. Your specialty is electronic surveillance and that’s what you’re going into Peking for. I want their quarters bugged, their aides, their meeting places, their persons—I want every word from every pair of lips monitored twenty-four hours a day until further notice.”
“You know that’s impossible. They’ll equip the meetings with radio jammers and tape demagnetizers. But we’ll do what we can. They can’t install jammers everywhere. Trouser buttons can be replaced with micro-transmitters, bugs can be implanted in bedposts and telephones and toilets. We’ll get what we can get, that’s all. How much of a team will I have?”
“Every deep-cover agent in Peking has been alerted to put himself under your orders. Naturally we’ve excluded all of our agents who are known by the Chinese. Your work crew will be big enough but you will have to monitor everything yourself.”
“Then I shan’t get much sleep, shall I?”
“Jiou Ssu-kuan will be Anya’s primary target. He has a weakness for anything that wiggles and as Defense Minister he warrants the highest priority.”
“He’ll be wired, then.”
“Get every word,” he said. He got up and put his arm into the sleeve of his coat.
Valentia put both hands on the arms of her chair and levered herself upright. Immediately she dwarfed the room. “If you intended to stun me you’ve succeeded. But if we assume you’re right and they do plan to attack—what then?”
“Then let’s hope we shall react in time.”
“You’ll forgive my impertinence, Ivan, but what if the Kremlin refuses to act?”
“Your job,” he replied, “is to supply me with such evidence as will make it impossible for them to refuse.”
“If the evidence is there we’ll find it.”