He too sat down on the runway. He threw up into his lap and didn't bother to clean himself off. He just sat there.
"That wasn't Andy we saw a minute ago," he said.
"I won't say anything if you don't," said the security chief.
The security team all sat down in a circle on the runway and made a pact that they would not mention the man they had seen fleeing the area who looked like their former colleague but was not. They cut their thumbs and pressed them together so that it was a blood oath.
Then they waited. But they didn't know what they were waiting for.
Anna Chutesov drove to the Soviet embassy in New York City. She drove over the speed limit because she felt that if she slowed down or stopped it would all catch up with her.
It caught up with her in New Rochelle. She pulled over to the side of the road and buried her face in the steering wheel and, for half an hour, sobbed uncontrollably.
When she sat up at last, her face was drawn and her eyes were dry. She was again the Anna Chutesov who had risen from the Komonsol to a position of supreme responsibility in the Kremlin.
She was in love. And the man whom she loved was not only an American agent but also, more damningly, he did not want her. It was the ultimate humiliation for a woman who had never before allowed herself the luxury of acknowledging deep feelings for any man. The consul general was not surprised to see Anna Chutesov. He had been informed that she was in the country, and because he knew all about the missing Yuri Gagarin-as did the whole world by now-he assumed that the shuttle's recovery was her mission. "Comrade Chutesov," he greeted unctuously. Instead of speaking, Anna Chutesov took her thumb between her teeth and ripped at the skin. She dug at the tear with a colorless fingernail and attacked it again with her teeth,
"Here," she said, spitting a black plastic whisker into the doubtful consul general's hand. "This is a highly sophisticated homing transmitter. If there is a way to pinpoint the source that is receiving its transmissions, do so immediately and inform me once you have that information."
"Of course, Comrade Chutesov. Where might I reach you?"
"I will be in the embassy lounge. Drinking."
Anna Chutesov was drinking vodka when the consul general found her. She did not look drunk. Probably she wasn't. But the bottle on the bar was nearly empty.
"We have isolated the area at which the transmissions are directed," he said.
"Where?" snapped Anna Chutesov, pausing with a tumbler just under her elegant lips. The consul general noticed that there was no ice in the glass.
"In the state of California. Near Los Angeles."
"Is that the best Soviet science can do?"
"No. A team will be dispatched to triangulate the exact location, if that is what Comrade Chutesov desires."
"Comrade Chutesov only desires the loan of the equipment necessary to locate that point. Comrade Chutesov will handle the matter herself. Comrade Chutesov would not trust this to a man. Comrade Chutesov will never trust a man ever again."
"Yes, Comrade Chutesov," said the consul general. "You will not require backup agents on this matter?"
"I already have them, if the fools were able to pass themselves off as untrained migrant workers-which I think may have been too much for them."
And Anna Chutesov downed the remainder of the tumbler of warm alcohol, telling herself bitterly that all men were like straight vodka, colorless and so damned transparent.
Chapter 16
Larry Lepper hated robots. "I hate robots," he said.
"These aren't robots," said Bill Banana, head of the famous Banana-Berry Animation Studios, in a soothing voice. Normally Bill Banana saved his soothing voice for his girlfriends. When you were the head of the largest cartoon factory in the history of television, you did not soothe, you barked. Sometimes you did neither. Sometimes you just fired people when they refused to let you have your way.
Bill Banana did not want to fire Larry Lepper. He wanted to hire him. Larry Lepper, despite his youthful appearance, was the greatest animator in the business.
"I don't do robots," insisted Larry Lepper. "I did robots over at Epic Studios. You could fill a junkyard with the robots I designed for Epic. No more."
"These robots are different," soothed Bill Banana. He leaned back in his office chair, surrounded by life-size papier-mache statues of his studio's cartoon creations. They looked more realistic than he did.
"I thought you said they weren't robots," said Larry Lepper.
Bill Banana spread his hands in an expansive gesture. He broke out in a pleased grin. Somehow, his grin looked wider than outspread arms. He had good reason to grin. When you grossed three million dollars a year and were responsible for exactly seventy-eight percent of the cartoons shown on Saturday morning, you were king of your industry. Even if it was an industry in which artistic skill, technical brilliance, and storytelling ability were reduced three percent each year as a hedge against rising production costs, so that after nearly thirty years of animation, the Banana-Berry Studio was reduced to cranking out cartoons that were only one step above flip-page books.
"They aren't robots. Exactly." Bill Banana grinned.
"Robots are robots," said Larry Lepper. "You can call them Gobots, Transformers, or Robokids, but they're still robots."
"Robokids made us a cool quarter-million last year," said Bill Banana seriously, rolling a stubby cigar to the other side of his mouth.
"The ratings sucked. You made it all on toy-licensing deals."
"That's where the action is these days. You know that. And don't knock Robokids. It was brilliant. I should know, I came up with it myself. Kids who transform into robots. No one had ever thought it up before. They had trucks that turned into robots and jet airplanes that turned into robots. They even had robots that turned into other robots. But Robokids? Original."
"I'm not working on robot shows," repeated Larry Lepper. "I'm sick of them. Here," he said, unzipping a black portfolio that was the size of an executive's desktop. "Let me show you my latest concept."
Bill Banana accepted the Bristol Board reluctantly. He looked at the drawing, cigar ash falling on the board with each puff.
"Buster Bear?" he barked.
"Look, this robot trend's gotta peak soon," Larry said eagerly. "Be the first guy out of the gate for a change."
"No good. No one will buy a Buster Bear toy. Look at him. He looks like a cream puff. Maybe we could change him, though. Call him Blaster Bear. Stick a whatchamcallit an Izzy-in his paw."
"Uzi," said Larry Lepper wearily.
"We'll call it an Izzy. That way we can copyright the design and spin off the gun as a separate toy."
"And copyright the character yourself? Nothing doing," said Larry Lepper, snatching back the presentation piece before cigar ash burned holes in it. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"So let me tell you about my new show," said Bill Banana, happy to get Buster Bear off the negotiating table.
Larry Lepper wiped at his shiny forehead unhappily. He was only thirty-four, but he had already lost most of his hair. Oddly, his high forehead made him look younger than his years.
"No robots," said Larry Lepper.
"We call them Spideroids. They're not robots, exactly. They're giant spiders, see, but they turn into androids. An android is a robot that looks like a real person. My manicurist explained it to me."
"How original," said Larry Lepper dispiritedly.
"I knew you'd get it!" Bill Banana said excitedly, slapping the desk with a beefy smack. "I knew that you, Larry Lepper, of all the guys working in the industry today, would see the awesome potential of this concept. How fast can you come up with the designs? I'll put you on at our top salary."