The first warning flag rose on the committe launch’s short mast. Krylov pointed to it, and Brook nodded.
“Practice start,” Krylov said. “You have a stopwatch?”
Brook tapped the Rolex on his wrist.
“What I shall try today is a start to the right of the committee boat. Twenty-five seconds on a broad reach, ten seconds to jibe, then twenty-five seconds to return to the mark on a close reach. We will be on the starboard tack when we cross.”
“We’d better not overshoot or undershoot. We’ll never get in.”
“I know, I know.” Krylov smiled. “It is a risk, but that is how one wins, is it not? By taking risks?”
“Sometimes,” Brook smiled back. And wondered again if Krylov was giving him an opening. It’s that damned Russian accent, he thought. Or my conditioning to it. He decided to play hard to get a little longer.
They joined the boats milling about near the line and practiced Krylov’s tactic. The perfect start would be to cross at the crack of the gun. If they crossed early they would have to turn around and cross again; in this case the other boats would have right of way, making it difficult to get back fast. On the other hand, if they came to the line too late, the others would have the advantage of a head start. Krylov handled his boat skillfully in the tryout and they reached the line again fifty-two seconds after they had left it. “All right,” Krylov said with satisfaction. “Twenty-two seconds out, eight seconds to jibe, twenty-two back. That should do it if the wind does not change.”
Brook lost himself in their preparations for the race. Krylov was keeping a sharp eye on the warning flags as they changed, putting the boat through several maneuvers; at one point he had Brook crawl forward and give the forestay turnbuckle another turn.
Once Brook glanced toward shore. Sure enough, there was the squat figure of Volodya, the “chauffeur,” silhouetted on the breakwater.
He kept calling the time, and on the tick of the final warning flag’s rise they were racing away from the committee launch and the fleet; most of the other boats were using the orthodox tactic of sailing to leeward at right angles to the starting line. He divided his attention between his stopwatch and the trim of the jib. At twenty-two seconds Krylov jibed the boat like a master and headed back. Brook called off the seconds. Judging the rapidly decreasing distance to the line, Krylov slowed or accelerated by letting the mainsail in or out. His performance was astonishing: at the last moments Brook thought they would cross the line early, but in a lightning maneuver Krylov swung to windward and back again. His final pull on the helm and mainsheet, while Brook swiftly brought the jib in tight, put them in close-hauled, with their bow only a few feet from the starting line.
The gun went off.
They were first across, showing their tail to the nearest boat by many yards. For some time to come Krylov would stay on his present course, the first leg of the tacking route to the buoy.
“Very nice, comrade,” Brook said with absolute sincerity.
“Thank you.” Krylov’s grin was shy.
On his way to the first mark he not only held their lead but lengthened it. Brook busied himself trimming the jib and changing it whenever Krylov called for a tack. The Russian maneuvered their zigzag course so that they were able to round the buoy by tacking rather than jibing. In an incredibly short time they were skimming across the wind on their reaching leg, the boat’s fastest point of sailing. She was heeled over now, her lee rail awash, and Brook and Krylov leaned far out to windward to balance her.
“This is living!” Krylov cried.
“For me, too!”
“I began sailing in Denmark. The first time, the very first time, it excited me. I was overwhelmed. I looked about at the sea, the world, and I said, ‘What have I been missing? This is for me!’”
“That’s the way we capitalists get you guys,” Brook said gaily. Might as well take the plunge now. The moment felt right. “It can’t have been the only thing that grabbed you about the West.”
Krylov laughed. “Certainly not. I have been seduced in many ways. Here, out of range of ears human and electronic, I admit it freely. To a sailor like you I do not mind saying such a thing. In confidence, of course.”
“Of course.” Brook looked at him. “Could be you’ve found the right man to talk to, Alex.”
It appeared to Brook that the Russian was not surprised. “What does that mean, Mr. Brook?” he asked. There was nothing to be squeezed out of his voice.
“It was Peter a minute ago.”
“Now, I think, it should be Mr. Brook. Until we have developed this curious dialogue.” Krylov’s blue eyes remained on him. “What did that remark mean?”
Here goes. “We’ve been trying to get to you for some time, Alex. You had an appointment a while back with a man named Wilkinson. That appointment was never kept.”
He watched Krylov closely, without subterfuge. The Slavic face showed no more than his voice. “You are this Wilkinson’s surrogate?”
“Talk plainer English than that.”
“You are from his apparat?”
Brook smiled. “You must have known, when you started dropping hints here and there months ago, that they’d get back to us. My hunch is you’ve been waiting for somebody like me to show up.”
Krylov worked the tiller and mainsheet. When he turned back to Brook there was the faintest crease between his heavy brows. “You have some identification?”
“Oh, come on, Alex.”
Krylov was silent.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it. If you want something badly enough, you’ve got to take risks — isn’t that what you said a few minutes ago? This is it, Alex. Put up or shut up.”
Krylov muttered, “In one I lose a race. In the other my life.”
“Maybe this will help. At the Canadian Embassy garden party on September tenth last year, you had a chat with Major General Buey of the United States Air Force. No one else was near; no one not officially informed could possibly know of the conversation. You expressed admiration for the United States and said to the General — I’m quoting — ‘Perhaps some day I shall be able to visit your country, for a long time, without restrictions. It would depend, of course, on what opportunities develop.’”
“Yes,” Krylov said. “Yes.”
“General Buey reported your words, and a special file was started on you. I couldn’t possibly know about it if I weren’t what I represent myself to be.”
He saw Krylov swallow.
Poor bastard. He was laying his life on the line, all right.
Brook waited patiently to let him think it out. He would have done the same thing. He might well be an agent from Krylov’s side, sent to lure the “attaché” into a treasonable admission.
“Stand by to jibe!” yelled Krylov.
Brook looked around and saw that they were at the second buoy. Krylov turned the boat and Brook brought the jib over to the right side. He was glad that these smaller boats were raced without spinnakers; he would have time to talk instead of fighting to put up a billowing sail. In a moment, Krylov had the boat on its new course, running with the wind slightly over the starboard quarter. Yards behind them several other boats were just beginning to approach the mark they had rounded.
“There were other occasions when you made similar remarks,” said Brook. “I can repeat them to you—”
“It will not be necessary.” Krylov squinted back at their pursuers and took a breath of the salt and neutral air. Brook felt a twinge — half satisfaction, half regret. He really liked the guy. It was like seeing a man spit in his mother’s face. She could be a bitch, but she was still his mother. He smiled at himself. Bourgeois sentimentality, the old Krylov would have called it. Something stronger and saltier in Holloway’s damnation. “For some reason I find myself wishing to tell you a very long story. How I became disenchanted with the rigors of Communist life, the fears that followed like Siberian wolves, the suffocation of — why should I not say it? — the soul. How I struggled to understand what was happening to me, why I wished to come over to your side—” he shrugged “—defect. Defector. It is like saying ‘traitor.’ But it is not treason to my country, only to its system of government. I prefer the other term.”