They were welcome to each other, in spades. Chase had cried few tears. If not Chambers it would have been some other specimen in the television menagerie. A cameraman or a sound recordist or the prop boy.
He heaved himself up and answered the phone. A features editor wanting to know how much he knew about viruses from outer space. He promised to stop by her office the day after tomorrow. His fingers were hardly off the receiver when it rang again: Could he sit in on a discussion on energy conservation followed by a phone-in for Capital Radio a week from Thursday? He said yes, he could, and it was only when he'd put the phone down that it occurred to him that very soon --by the end of the week--he'd have to refuse all further offers of work. Three weeks from today he'd be on his way to America, and there was a vast amount to sort out in the meantime--not only Dan and who'd look after him, but also planning and fixing up his itinerary for the seven-week trip.
New York, New Jersey, Boston, Washington, Denver, the West Coast ... a lot of ground to cover . . . MIT, Cornell, Smithsonian, NOAA, Scripps . . . the list began to run out of control and he told himself to put it aside until tomorrow when the computer modeling article would be out of the way.
Shortly after five o'clock Dan appeared, escorted to the door by the conscientious Sarah, taking her role as surrogate mother very seriously.
"Daniel has been a naughty boy," she informed Chase primly, standing there in pinafore and pigtails, arms folded. "He won't do as he's told!"
"I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter?"
"He would not go to the toilet," Sarah said, frowning through her dimples.
Father and son silently regarded each other with identical blue-gray eyes. Like Chase's, the boy's hair was dead straight and hung over his eyes in a sweeping curve, though it was fair and fine, not thick and black.
"Oh. Well. Never mind," Chase said. "Perhaps he didn't want to go. Thanks for looking after him."
Sarah nodded, duty discharged, and trotted off along the corridor.
"I did want to," Dan confided as Chase closed the door, and in a burst of scandalized six-year-old indignation, "But her, Bossy Boots, wanted to come with me and pull my pants down!"
"Pity. That's probably the best offer you'll get for at least ten years," Chase said.
The odd-colored eyes of Yuri Malankov, officer, third grade, were fixed coldly and disconcertingly on the dead-center of Boris Stanovnik's forehead.
It was a trait Boris remembered well from the days when the young Malankov had worked as his lab assistant: his inability, or refusal, to look anyone directly in the eye. Malankov was shut away in the barred and bolted fortress of his narrow, dogmatist head.
They were sitting facing each other across a plain table in one of the hundreds of anonymous rooms of the seven-story building at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square. In prerevolutionary days it had housed the All-Russian Insurance Company; now it was the headquarters of the Committee for State Security, the official nomenclature of the KGB.
This was typical KGB psychology, Boris knew, to disorient the interviewee by making the surroundings bleakly impersonal. Yet knowing this didn't make the effect any the less intimidating.
"You say the letter was to a friend, yet it was addressed to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography." Malankov didn't relax his remorseless empty gaze.
"Dr. Detrick is a marine biologist at Scripps. I write to her there, just as she writes to me at the Hydro-Meteorological Service. I don't see anything strange in that."
"The letter contained more than personal news and friendly salutations. It made specific reference to a project that is of vital importance to the people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."
"Why, yes, but of course," Boris said easily. He blinked in surprise. "We exchange gossip about the work we're engaged in. All scientists do. But you know that already, Yuri, from the time you spent with the service." He smiled. "There was nothing in the letter of a confidential nature. Certainly nothing that's classified."
Malankov's eyes went down to the typewritten sheet in front of him, which Boris guessed was a transcript of the letter. Where was the original? After interception had it been sent on? Unlikely. But Malankov had said "letter"--in the singular--which filled Boris with hope.
"You must be aware how sensitive this project is," said Malankov. "Particularly at the present time."
Statement or question? Boris chose not to respond. Let the KGB weasel take the lead; that was his job.
Malankov kept his eyes lowered, his sallow face expressionless. "Any information, no matter how innocuous it might seem, could add to the overall intelligence picture compiled by our imperialist enemies," he said, as if quoting verbatim from the official handbook. "A hint here, a clue there, a careless phrase. We must be eternally vigilant, Professor, about matters that concern national security."
Boris nodded agreement, though he was genuinely puzzled. "I'm sorry, but I thought you were referring to Project Arrow, the Ob and Yenisei rivers diversion scheme. I don't see how that can have anything to do with national security. Its purpose is to provide much needed arable land in western Siberia. It has no military significance at all, so far as I'm aware."
"I was using the term in its widest sense, of course," Malankov said, a fraction too hurriedly, and for a fleeting moment actually looked into Boris's eyes, as if anxious about something. "We must never forget that national security embraces all aspects of political and economic activity. We are defending our heritage and culture, our way of life, against Western subversion. Plentiful food for our people is a powerful weapon of war. Men cannot fight on empty bellies."
Boris smelled a very large rat. This chunk of party dogma was Malankov's clumsy attempt at a cover-up. In his haste and ignorance he's exposed precisely that which he was striving to conceal. Yet Boris was still puzzled: How did Project Arrow fit into a military context? In what way exactly?
"I understand that," he said gravely, his mind working furiously. "But I should point out that my letter contained nothing that the Americans don't already know. The Western press has reported the scheme since its inception in the mid-seventies."
"Speculation, Professor--not technical detail," Malankov said sternly. "They're certainly not aware how near we are to achieving our goal. Your letter hinted that your work on the project will soon be over."
"And so it will. In a month's time I shall be sixty-four, and I intend to retire from the service next year. Hence the reference to my work coming to an end."
Malankov was plainly stumped. He cleared his throat in several stages, eyes focused on the safe middle distance. "I see. Yes, well, that would explain it. I understand now."
"Good, I'm glad that you do, comrade," Boris murmured, loading the last word with half-a-dozen shades of meaning: condescending, impatient, threatening--as if to say "I am Professor Boris Vladimir Stanovnik, one of this country's leading experts in microbiology, and you, Malankov, whatever status you might have attained, remain the incompetent, shifty, sniveling lab assistant with bitten nails and bad breath."
It was a psychological technique that Malankov himself might have used, given the opportunity, and it worked to good effect.
Boris rose to his feet, looming large in the tiny bare room, and it seemed that Malankov shrank perceptibly, a petty government official behind a cheap desk.